Shocking photos show how sea creatures in Scotland are now LIVING on our litter

Shocking photos show marine life making homes out of litter – including a lobster living in a traffic cone and sea anemone growing on a can of Irn Bru.

Chemistry teacher Ross McLaren, 31, started documenting detritus while diving around estuaries in Scotland.

He thinks Scotland is one of the best places in the world for diving, but said litter has skyrocketed since lockdown.

Ross started diving in September 2016 and was amazed by starfish, anemones, lobsters and squid.

But one time he saw a beautiful jellyfish – only to realize it was a Bag For Life.

Earlier this month, a lobster was found hiding in a traffic cone while diving near Fairlie Quay, Largs, North Ayrshire

He said the hobby can be depressing at times due to the amount of waste, and he has to weigh the benefits of removing litter if a marine animal lives in it.

Father of a Ross, from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, said: ‘Most of the rubbish in my car comes from diving, every six months I empty it out.

“Some of the things I’ve seen underwater are decades old – a Nintendo controller and cans of Tennent” with the pin-up girls on them.

‘I accidentally fell in love with diving and it’s good to show people what happens.

‘Sea animals make their homes in litter. People won’t care if they can’t see it.

‘One day in Greenock I saw what I thought was a huge jellyfish, but it was actually a Bag For Life.

‘You can understand why a whale or a porpoise thinks a plastic bag is a jellyfish. I was also completely unaware. It’s really quite discouraging.

‘The Irn Bru can shock a lot of people. There’s a bottle that looks like Budweiser or Buckfast, and a wheel rim, and the marine life has made a home there.”

Other discoveries include an old-fashioned kettle in Ballachulish, Highlands, and a flask with a glove on it.

Dad of a Ross, from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, said: ‘Most of the rubbish in my car is from diving, every six months I empty it out’

Other discoveries include an old-fashioned kettle in Ballachulish, Highlands, and a flask with a glove on it

Ross added: ‘I think it’s gotten worse since the lockdown. There is a general increase in the amount of litter in the water. ‘People don’t realize the impact it has. I tend to do a lot of diving around the estuaries, around Loch Lomond and Loch Fyne’

“I’m not a marine biologist or an eco-warrior,” said Ross, adding, “It’s easy to stop litter”

Ross added: ‘I think it’s gotten worse since the lockdown. There is a general increase in the amount of litter in the water.

‘People don’t realize the impact it has. I tend to do a lot of diving around the estuaries, around Loch Lomond and Loch Fyne.’

A disturbing 2019 photo showed a lobster with plastic tied around its claws, suggesting it had been caught and lobbed back into the water.

Earlier this month, a lobster was also found hiding in a traffic cone when diving near Fairlie Quay, Largs, North Ayrshire.

Ross added: ‘I was really quite surprised to see it – visibility isn’t the best at times and it wasn’t the easiest shot to get.

‘Sea life uses litter as a habitat. On this occasion I thought it best to leave it as it looked as if the lobster had settled there.

“On some of my dives I’ve seen something like a can of Irn Bru and it’s grown in bits and pieces and that’s where it becomes an ethical issue.

‘The incredible range of colors you can see is amazing – most people think that Scottish marine life is dull and gray on the surface, but full of color underneath.

“I’m not a marine biologist or an eco-warrior,” he said, adding, “Stopping litter is easy.”

Every year, eight million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean

Of the 30 billion plastic bottles used by UK households each year, only 57 per cent are currently recycled.

Since half of this goes to landfill, half of all plastic bottles that are recycled are thrown away.

About 700,000 plastic bottles per day end up as litter.

This is largely due to plastic packaging around bottles being non-recyclable.

Bottles are an important contributor to the increasing amount of plastic waste in the world’s oceans.

Researchers warned that eight million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year – the equivalent of one truckload per minute.

The amount of plastic waste in the world’s oceans will exceed the amount of fish by 2050 unless the world takes drastic action to continue recycling, a report released in 2016 revealed.

At the current rate, this will increase to four truckloads per minute by 2050, surpassing indigenous life to become the largest mass inhabiting the oceans.

An overwhelming 95 per cent of plastic packaging – worth £65-£92 billion – is lost to the economy after a single use, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation report.

And available research estimates that there are more than 150 million tons of plastic in the ocean today.

Plastic pollution is devastating the world’s ecosystems, both marine and terrestrial. It litters riverbanks, traps animals and suffocates entire populations of animals

So much plastic is dumped into the sea each year that it would fill five carrier bags for every foot of shoreline on the planet, scientists warn.

More than half of the plastic waste that ends up in the oceans comes from just five countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

The only industrialized Western country on the list of the top 20 plastic polluters is the United States at number 20.

The U.S. and Europe don’t mismanage their collected waste, so the plastic waste coming from those countries is due to litter, researchers said.

While China is responsible for 2.4 million tons of plastic ending up in the ocean, nearly 28 percent of the world’s total, the United States contributes just 77,000 tons, which is less than one percent, according to the study published in the journal Science.