North coast environmental group appeals to those dropping 'Bible message in bottles' in Bann to stop

The group Sea2it posted on social media: “Would any of the Coleraine churches know who is dumping bible messages in plastic bottles into the River Bann at Coleraine on this industrial scale? Whatever your beliefs or reason you have to spread the word of God, this act is littering our beautiful river.

"Sea2it volunteers have been removing these bottles for years now and collected a shocking 670 of these bottles with messages in them in 2023. Unfortunately, again a fresh 2024 batch seems to have been released into the river over the new year.

"They are always downstream of the Old Town Bridge so the person(s) must be dumping them into the river around Dunnes Stores, the foot Bridge or Waterside area. Please can you stop doing this as it’s polluting our river and tying up 100s of hours of our volunteer time removing them when we could be tackling other immediate impacts on the river.

“If any local church group wishes to help with a clean up of our local River and address this blight please contact us [email protected].”

Causeway Coast and Glens Council said it was unaware of “this littering in the River Bann”.

"We would advise that anyone identified as having committed littering or illegal dumping offences will be dealt with by way of a fixed penalty notice of £200 or prosecution in the Magistrates Court, where the maximum fine on conviction is £2,500.”