From Sea to Landing: Exploring impacts of marine litter, including abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear, and the role of commercial fisheries in recovery and reduction.
Marine litter, including abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear, creates persistent environmental pressures through plastic pollution, entanglement risk, degradation into secondary microplastics, impacts on benthic habitats and biofouling. Although Scotland is moving towards more sustainable fishing gear practices, clear pathways for end-of-life gear disposal remain limited. The Fishing for Litter scheme, implemented by KIMO International, provides an established route for 750 UK fishing vessels at 80 harbours to recover and land marine litter, as well as providing opportunities to move recovered ocean plastics and end-of-life fishing gear into specialist marine recycling streams.
This project asks two questions: What are the characteristics and environmental impacts of marine litter including abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear, recovered from Scottish inshore waters through Fishing for Litter; and what challenges and opportunities affect retrieval by the fishing industry.
Supervisors
Start date:
01 October 2026
Employment
May 2025-Present - Research and Sustainability Manager - Fishing for Litter KIMO International
May 2009-May 2025 - Paramedic Practitioner and Clinical Auditor - NHS
Qualifications
2025 MSc International Marine Science; thesis with Merit: Forecasting cetacean strandings - Can environmental variables be used to predict high-risk stranding conditions for common dolphins? - Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh
2014 Bachelor of Science - Health Studies - Dundee University
2011 Foundation Degree in Science (Merit) - Paramedic Science - Bournemouth University