Thousands of plastic tubes washed up on beaches

Thousands of plastic tubes and bottle tops are washing up on the Cornish coastline near Falmouth.

The spray bottle tops have been found along Helford River and on beaches in Falmouth and Maenporth, with locals believing they could be coming from a container lost at sea.

Researcher Emily Stevenson works at the University of Exeter campus at Penryn and said they were seeing a "vast amount" of the items come ashore.

She said: "We've definitely had over 100 donated to us for research purposes but we know there is a lot more out there."

Ms Stevenson said: "One of the types is a nasal spray and one of them is an ear and eye wash containing an antibiotic.

"We’ve got these bottles washing up in vast quantities."

Carol Hurst, from One Bag Beach Clean - a community beach clean group, found more of the tubes in the Falmouth area on Friday morning.

She said: "Over the last few days we’ve had thousands of these plastic things coming in.

"We are wondering whether a container out at sea has broken up and released all these plastics.

"The local community have been coming together to clean the beach and that’s how we’ve been finding so many of them!"

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: "We are not aware of any reports of plastic being washed up in Cornwall but have informed the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) who enforce regulations to prevent pollution from ships and respond to maritime pollution incidents."

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