The 1000 Tyres Project aims to clean up Plymouth Sound and its rivers by removing polluting materials like tyres and plastics. This page will be used to provide access to the science behind the cleanup and rewilding work that we do.
We want to improve the health of the Tamar ecosystem as it will bring benefits to the local marine and bird life, the City of Plymouth and the people who live there. When nature is left alone it is often capable of regeneration, but we are limiting the natural regeneration in Plymouth Sound by leaving polluting materials in the ecosystem.
What can still be found on the seabed and riverbeds of the Tamar waterway is the remains of all the historic pollution dumped into Plymouth Sound. Fortunately, the largest volume of pollutants was historic sewage and organic material which became food for marine life, so little of that now remains. What does remain on and within the seabed is a mix of materials including:
The estuary and rivers in the Tamar waterway are a designated Marine Protected Area so care has to be taken not to disturb protected species and habitats when removing marine litter from the seabed and foreshore. Seagrass (Zostera marina) grows in sheltered and shallow areas so removal of litter from these areas can only be done if it does not disturb the seagrass. More about the Marine Protected Area .
A history of the extent and loss of seagrass in Plymouth can be found by clicking this link .
Some of the rubbish on the seabed and in the rivers was dumped there many years ago. The 1000 Tyres Project wrote a white paper on the historic pollution in the Tamar Waterway because very little has been published on that subject, so the impact on the ecosystem is largely unknown. The white paper looks at the sources of pollution in Plymouth Sound and its estuaries from historical records and then attempts to summarise the legacy of each in the ecosystem today. At the end of the document, the detrimental effect of historic pollution on marine life is discussed for fish species, native oysters, and seagrass.
You can download a free copy of the white paper 'Pollution in Plymouth Sound and the Tamar Waterway - A Historical Review' here .
Last updated 22 May 2023
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