Systematic destruction and pollution of UK waters by EU fishing fleet, say UK fishermen
Part One of a Special Investigative Report
Evidence exposed of years of abuse of marine habitat - Environmental disaster in the making - No action by UK Authorities
Montage © UKFC & Facts4EU.Org 2025. [NOTE: Part-pixelated. Original versions are available.]
For years UK fishermen have been the EU fleet's reluctant, unpaid bin-men, trawling up acres of plastics pollution and dead wildlife which these boats leave in their wake. The new 'UK Fisheries Campaign' and politicians call on Sir Keir Starmer to take immediate action.
Today the Fisheries Campaign UK publishes exclusive evidence of the environmentally destructive activities of the EU’s fishing fleet in UK waters over many years, in contravention of UK and EU law.
In these two 'Marine Ecology' reports we expose the scale of the polluting of the natural marine habitat and the slaughter of wildlife. The reports also describe the valiant efforts made by British fishermen over many years – in vain – to get the UK authorities to act.
The photo to the left shows the magnitude of the pollution being dumped in British waters by fishermen from the EU fleet.
With this being just one example from one fishing trip by one UK vessel, it is difficult to understand how this is not being treated as anything other than an emergency by the UK’s marine authorities.
Using the research team from the Facts4EU think-tank, and with the support of GB News, CIBUK, and our affiliated organisations, the UK Fisheries Campaign tackles a deadly issue in forensic detail which will shock readers. With the help of some dedicated politicians and the media, we call for immediate action to stop a scandal which - say the fishermen - has been tacitly ignored by those in a position to stop it.
SCOTLAND / UK – The evidence used in this report relates to Scotland, Scottish waters, and the Scottish authorities. The subject matter - gillnetting - is practised by some UK fishermen in the south of England, without the same problems seeming to be apparent, so this report is confined to the problems in Scottish waters of the UK. The UKFC is a nationwide organisation and will be using evidence from Members relating to other parts of the UK in other reports in this series.
GB NEWS - We are pleased to tell readers that GB News have already reported on this article. Their version can be read here.
Today's report should be of deep concern to a great many people. The second report on this subject of marine pollution goes much further and is not for those sensitive to the terrible deaths of marine life which we will evidence.
From the Chair of the Commons Select Committee, backing the UK Fisheries Campaign
The Rt Hon Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland
"Industrial-scale gill net fishing of the sort that we see by foreign boats in British waters is dangerous to our fishermen and destructive of our environment. Spanish boats such as the Pesorsa Dos have behaved like gangsters. That lives have not been lost already has had more to do with luck than judgement.
"Then there is the environmental damage from discarded gill nets. This is a massive cause of plastic pollution in our seas.
"On every level this sort of fishing activity is unsustainable. UK and Scottish governments need to work together to protect our seas and our fishermen. For years they have stood by, wringing their hands and coming up with excuses for doing nothing."
"If this sort of behaviour was happening on dry land there would be massive public outcry. When it happens at sea then it should be no different. Out of sight should not mean out of mind."
- Alistair Carmichael MP, Liberal Democrats, Chair of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Select Committee, 12 Apr 2025
We will also be seeking the Government's responses to the fishermen's claims made in this major series of reports.
"We have proven our ability to build a strong relationship with the EU on fisheries matters, including through the quota negotiations.... Other countries are clearly pushing very hard, and we will push equally hard for our sector."
- Daniel Zeichner MP, Labour, Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Westminster Hall, 26 Mar 2025
Menu: 'The Fish Course'
Intro: “Remember how our fishermen were thrown overboard when we left the EU?”
Part I: “In the 5th year of Brexit, EU fishermen continue taking vast quantities of British fish.”
Part II: UKFC CAMPAIGN LAUNCH - “Announcing the launch of the UK Fisheries Campaign!”
Part III: “‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ - and here’s how we win. The tide is turning against ‘the Blob’.”
Part IV: Weekend summary and next week lookahead
Part V: Beware the Spanish Armada
Part VI: Systematic pollution of UK waters by EU fishing fleet, say UK fishermen
Part VII: Mass deaths of UK mammals, seabirds, & aquatic life caused by EU fishing vessels
Coming: More gripping stories in this must-read series from the UK Fisheries Campaign
The UKFC - For a sea-change in the fortunes of our fishermen and our coastal communities
No matter how vast, no oceans can take this level of pollution
50 years ago it was thought that the world’s oceans are so vast that rubbish routinely discarded overboard by sea-going vessels would have little impact on the aquatic environment. This all changed as increasing marine activity uncovered more and more examples of its effects.
Crucially, this plastic enters the foodchain because of the fish eating it
“Garbage from ships can be just as deadly to marine life as oil or chemicals. The greatest danger comes from plastic, which can float for years. Fish and marine mammals can in some cases mistake plastics for food and they can also become trapped…”
- International Maritime Organisation, ‘Prevention of Pollution by Garbage from Ships’, background to legal annex V, 2024.
It is now accepted around the world that the consequences of discarding waste at sea are catastrophic for the marine world, including all its many forms of life. This report concerns the systematic disposal of tonnes of domestic rubbish into our waters by EU fishermen – and the effects it has.
One boat, one crew - A tiny illustration of what's going on
Imagine a fishing boat around 35m long and 8m wide, out in UK waters. There are 14 crew on board, they’ve been out for nearly 10 days’ fishing, and are now heading to a port. One person on his own creates daily rubbish – the plastic wrapping around his meals and snacks, drink bottles, toiletries, etc. Over the days and weeks at sea this mounts up. Then multiply this by 14 for the amount created by the entire crew. On top of this where are often large amounts of old, unusable netting and lines, but we’ll cover this later.
Well-run boats retain all the ‘domestic rubbish’ in central containers until they return to land. Once there, they offload the many large sacks and handball them into the large dumpsters conveniently located close-by and which are free to use. At some ports a responsible person will even stamp your rubbish log to show you acted within the law, by bringing back your rubbish instead of dumping it overboard while at sea.
That’s what EU fishing crews should do by law - now compare with this eyewitness account
Above is a photo of the [boat name withheld], a French-owned vessel licensed to fish in UK waters. A Shetland fisherman took this as proof to give to the UK authorities that EU-owned vessels habitually jettison their waste at sea, in contravention of International and UK law. He gave UKFC the following statement.
Statement from an eyewitness
"The [boat name withheld] came into Lerwick harbour to land its catch into the back of a Spanish lorry. The vessel had been at sea for nine full days, with no less than 14 of a crew onboard. Despite being at sea for this length of time, and berthing under 20m from a rubbish skip which is free to use, she discharged not one single rubbish bag into the skip.
"Judging by how much rubbish our own vessel creates with just 5 of a crew, they will have generated around 5-7 cubic meters of domestic waste for this period of time at sea, not including any discarded fishing equipment."
- Shetland fisherman, statement to the UKFC, 29 Mar 2025. Name known but withheld.
Photo: A tiny proportion of plastic netting which is recovered from the sea floor each day.
This is happening all the time, it’s against UK law, and it’s been going on for years
None of the UK fishermen questioned could recall ever seeing an EU fishing vessel berth and offload any rubbish. The above is a common incident and trawling up this detritus is a weekly occurrence for them. When we asked for evidence we were inundated with photos they had taken of rubbish they had caught when trying to catch fish.
This report contains only a small selection of these photos, ranging from plastic food wrapping to hyperdermic needles to enormous amounts of discarded netting. We will return to the subject of netting.
How do we know it's members of the EU fishing fleet who are doing this?
In theory, all vessels are supposed by law to keep a Rubbish Log, to prove they are disposing of their on-vessel waste in ports. The reality is that the UK authorities can show no records of inspecting these, as we detail further down. This leaves us with a variety of ways of knowing it is fishermen on EU vessels who are disposing of their waste off the side of the boat, as follows:
- A large amount of plastic 'gillnetting' is recovered from UK waters every week
- In Scottish waters only EU vessels use this form of tackle to catch fish
- A significant amount of 'longliner' lines are regularly recovered
- Again, this is not used by Scottish fishermen
- The printed writing on plastic food wrappers and other wrapping is written in French, Spanish or Dutch
- For years UK fishermen have been photographing what they bring up in the catches
- We are only showing a small selection: all of it is of EU derivation
- On hundreds of occasions each year EU vessels have been observed entering ports and berthing
- No waste has been observed being removed from these boats by their crew and put in the dumpsters unless a photographer is present
Photographic evidence
Readers will notice that where writing appears on any rubbish, it is in European languages.
(More examples of different types of waste are below.)
What the law says
At an international level, the applicable regulations are found in what is known around the world as MARPOL Annex V. They aim to eliminate garbage and waste being discharged into the sea from ships. This started as a voluntary move but now over 150 countries have signed up and these regulations are incorporated into UK law: the Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Sewage from Ships) Regulations 2020.
In addition there is an EU Directive (2019/883) which requires ports to provide facilities for waste from fishing vessels. This is part of UK law, having been implemented via the Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations 2003 and having never been repealed after the UK left the EU.
These regulations apply to all boats operating within 200 nautical miles of British shores, engaged in any activity, of any nationality. Neither of them appear to provide or dictate a means of enforcement.
All EU (and UK) fishing vessels are subject to these environmental laws. It appears from all the evidence provided to us by British fishermen, (in this case mostly from Scotland), that the laws and regulations are not being implemented in any meaningful way.
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‘Who is responsible for monitoring and catching those polluting our waters on such an epic scale?’
There are many organisations – official and unofficial - involved in the whole area of fishing and the environment. The two main ones relating to fishing in Scotland are the Marine Directorate (MD, formerly known as 'Marine Scotland') which works for the Scottish Government, and the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) which is UK-wide.
Both organisations have remits which include conservation matters as a main focus. Indeed they seem more involved with 'green' issues than anything else, although not the one discussed in this report. The MCA is able to inspect any vessel operating up to the UK’s 200 nm limit and inspect its Rubbish Log among many other things. The Marine Directorate is able to monitor vessels berthing in Scottish ports, inspect their Logs, and inspect the amount of rubbish they place in the dumpster bins.
Photographic evidence
Some of the above was picked up off the local beaches, where a lot of the fishing fleet's items end up. As always, products are labelled in languages other than English. More examples of different types of waste are below.
The response from the authorities to the fishermen's claims
We made several attempts to find out from the marine authorities what is going on. Below we start with the experience of the fishermen, during their repeated attempts to raise this matter. Following this, we present the most recent answers we received to our own requests for information from both the Marine Directorate and from the Maritime & Coastguard Agency.
1. The fishermen's tale
When questioned at meetings with groups of Scottish fishermen, the Marine Directorate told them that harbour patrols had been undertaken and that “garbage and fishing gear is being disposed of appropriately”. Not unreasonably the fishermen asked the Marine Directorate in writing, using an FOI request, to provide evidence of amounts recorded and their response was:
“…we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. Under the terms of that exception, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.”
They went on:“This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’…. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the quantities of fishing gear observed as being disposed by our officers, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.”
- Written reply from the Marine Directorate, 28 Mar 2022.
There was no following statement that this would be rectified in future. What is strange is that if the Marine Directorate’s fishery officers are conducting these harbour patrols, just what are they recording each time?
The Marine Directorate took a month to reply to the fishermen’s requests
Here is the second question, about purely domestic rubbish - Marine Scotland’s reply was identical.
“... we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation... [etc] You asked Marine Scotland to provide approx. quantities of domestic rubbish which was disposed appropriately, as observed by Marine Scotland’s Officers during harbour patrols. We do not record this information and are therefore unable to provide this.”
It was the same with the third question, which simply asked for the number of vessels observed discarding waste at ports, not the amount discarded.
“... we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation... [etc] You asked Marine Scotland to provide the number of vessels discharging rubbish/fishing equipment ashore as observed by Marine Scotland’s Officers during harbour patrols. We do not record this information and are therefore unable to provide this.”
More photographic evidence
'Photo 5' above gives an indication of what a dumpster looks like when a UK vessel has returned from a trip and offloaded its waste.
Our questions to the Scottish Government Marine Directorate (SGMD)
In all dealings we asked for whatever information the Scottish Government had readily available in respect of marine litter emanating from commercial fishing operations. We stressed that we were looking for any documents or reports already produced and any quantified information that had been collected. In other words we were not prescriptive and were seeking only what they had available. They were unable to provide any substantive information at all.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
“The Scottish Government is clear that marine litter is unacceptable, risking the health of our marine environment on which we rely. Scotland was the first part of the UK to implement a ban on some of the most problematic single-use plastic products and we continue to work with our partners to reduce many sources of marine plastic pollution as possible and also to support the removal of rubbish from our seas and coastline.
“The Scottish Government’s Marine Litter Strategy and National Litter and Fly-tipping Strategy targets key sources of litter, including improving the collection and recycling opportunities for end-of-life fishing gear. We also continue to fund KIMO’s Fishing for Litter scheme to help fishers remove rubbish from our seas and encourage better waste management at sea.”
[See below for information about the charitable ‘Fishing for Litter’ scheme.]
The Scottish Government also said that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency is responsible for the enforcement of the regulations that relate to rubbish disposal at port waste reception facilities.
Our questions to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA)
As with the Scottish Government, we asked the MCA for anything they already had on the whole issue of marine litter and how it is monitored and controlled. The MCA responded that:
“the information you requested isn’t readily available in report format online, but you are very welcome to submit an FoI [Freedom of Information request].”
They also added a general statement:
“We recognise the serious impact pollution can have on the environment, communities and businesses, so preventing and tackling pollution from all vessels in UK waters is a priority for the MCA. HM Coastguard's counter pollution and salvage team is available 24/7 to respond to reports of pollution. Incidents of maritime pollution should be reported to HM Coastguard."
Readers will make up their own minds at the inability of two major government agencies to provide any information of any practical use to inform the public about the serious concerns addressed to them by British fishermen.
We also contacted two other organisations involved in the whole area of marine pollution: Environmental Standards Scotland, and 'Fishing for Litter'. Unfortunately neither responded with information.
Multiplied across the fleet on every boat that pollutes, and on every day of the year, it is clear environmental damage is being committed in UK waters on a deeply troubling scale.
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COMING NEXT...
Part 2: Deaths of mammals, seabirds, and aquatic life caused by EU fishing vessels
In the next report we will focus on the rich and diverse aquatic wildlife in and around our waters and the truly shocking impact on mammals, seabirds, and aquatic creatures of the casual jettisoning of miles of old fishing nets by EU boats.
Warning – distressing content: We must warn readers in advance they are likely to find some of the evidence to be very distressing. We will therefore take the unusual step of presenting highly-pixelated and blurred-out photographs with warnings of what they contain, which will only become fully visible if clicked.
The photo to the right appears in the next report and is only clickable there.
It is only by providing these shocking images that we believe anything will change.
Observations
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[ Sources: UK fishermen | Facts4EU.Org | IMO | UN FAO | MMO | MDS | MCA ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 14 Apr 2025
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