THE Mersey was found to be more polluted by microplastics than any other river in the UK in a new survey.

Greenpeace carried out surveys on 13 rivers in the country in spring and took samples in Warrington, where the Mersey passes through Howley.

It found 875 pieces of plastic in half an hour, making the river proportionally more polluted than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – widely considered to be the most polluted expanse of water on earth.

Warrington Guardian:

A Greenpeace test at the footbridge crossing the Mersey in Howley

And the campaign group said its findings was 'just the tip of a plastics iceberg' and should be a 'wake-up' call for the government.

Fiona Nicholls, from Greenpeace, said: "During this campaign we witnessed voles eating plastic, swans using it to build their nests, and caddisfly larva using it to make their protective casings."

Microplastics range in size from straws and bottle-top fragments to tiny microbeads less than 1mm across.

And Greenpeace says when it is in a river, it is almost impossible to remove.

Fiona added: "The results of this geographically widespread ‘snapshot’ survey demonstrate that plastic pollution is common to all the rivers investigated at some level, at almost all the locations sampled, and at some locations is already severe.

"Once plastics, especially microplastics, have reached a river, it becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to remove them; they have become part of the hidden landscape of the UK’s waterways, with the potential to endanger wildlife and our own health."

"By focusing on the surface 10cm of the rivers, we are undoubtedly seeing only a small proportion of the overall loading of plastics in our samples.

"In other words, we are witnessing just the tip of a plastics iceberg."

A Defra spokesperson said: “The UK is a global leader in tackling plastic pollution and is already making great strides – banning microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, taking 15 billion plastic bags out of circulation with our 5p carrier bag charge, and announcing plans to introduce a deposit return scheme for single use drinks containers.

“We know there is more to do, which is why we are funding ground-breaking research into how microplastics enter waterways and working with the water industry to find new methods to detect, measure and remove microplastics from wastewater.”

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