#Letter: Litter and pesticide mar Salt Rock visit

Dr Adrian Wilson of the United Kingdom writes:

My wife and I have just enjoyed ten days’ respite in a delightful location at Salt Rock, where we visited from the UK to reconnect with close relatives.

But what would have been a truly wonderful return to the Dolphin Coast has been marred by two issues.

Firstly, the astonishing amount of beach litter, especially around the tidal pool at Salt Rock.

We cannot believe that although litter bins are ample and clearly visible, visitors to the beach will throw their fast food containers, plastic bottles, glass bottles and anything else they happen not to want onto the sand – even right next to an empty bin!

Of course the many fast food polystyrene containers are then shredded by the tides and these shreds spread through the beaches, never to be removed.

This indifference by the community to its precious asset is something we do not understand.

Secondly, our stay in a quiet and low key rental cottage would have been delightful but for the fact we became aware the garden is regularly sprayed with pesticide to ‘keep the cockroaches and ants under control’.

This place would have been an absolute dream holiday location, placed as it is right on the beach front. But not an insect buzzes nor bird trills in this otherwise delightful coastal setting.

How can anyone, in 2022, still justify this very dated and hugely destructive pest management approach to an already significantly challenged coastal natural environment?

Surely we all, the local community as well as visitors and tourists, have by now realised that the natural resilience of our coastal environment is in a precarious state, and that litter and pesticides are major contributors to the problem?

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