Dumping of Bible verse bottles seemingly stops

An attraction aimed toward stopping the big scale dumping of plastic bottles containing Bible verses within the River Bann seems to have labored.

In the previous few years, 1000’s of bottles with non secular messages tucked inside had been thrown into the water, ending up within the reed beds, mud and paths alongside the river in Coleraine.

Earlier this yr, an environmental group known as Sea2it appealed publicly to whoever was behind the bottles to stop their actions – and it appears they’ve heeded that message.

“There are nonetheless a number of the older bottles within the river system and caught within the reed beds however there’s positively a considerable lower in any new bottles,” mentioned Andrew Bratton from Sea2it.

“In truth, I do not suppose any of us have lifted out recent bottles previously two months. We can inform by the situation of bottles that they are older and the messages are light.

“I feel the message we put out earlier within the springtime has hit house and the folks behind this have determined that it is not a good suggestion.”

When BBC News NI visited the location in January, the bottles had been noticeable with a fast look of the reed beds.

We picked up dozens of them, starting from some trying pretty new to others which appeared a few years previous.

They had all been meticulously cleaned and dried, earlier than the Bible messages had been rolled up, positioned inside and the highest screwed on tightly, and thrown into the river.

There had been 1000’s of them, suggesting somebody had put a variety of effort and time into this.

However, a giant a part of the thriller stays unsolved.

“We nonetheless do not know who was doing this,” mentioned Andrew Bratton.

“No particular teams or people got here ahead. But whoever it was, we wish to thank them for stopping.”

The story of the bottles brought on a stir within the city when it initially emerged.

“We had lots of of messages on our Facebook web page,” he mentioned.

“Some in assist, some specializing in what they felt was us attempting to lambast non secular teams.

“But we harassed all through this was not about us being anti-religious, it simply wasn’t the suitable technique to share that message in 2024.

“It was by no means concerning the substance of the message, but it surely was about the way it was being delivered.”

But regardless of this challenge showing to have been solved, different sources of air pollution proceed to plague the river.

Last week, volunteers eliminated 18 purchasing trollies, two farm gates and a scooter, amongst different issues, from the water.

Some volunteer river clean-up occasions have been postponed as, just like another waterways in Northern Ireland, blue-green algae has emerged.

“Blue-green algae is a large problem for us,” Mr Bratton mentioned.

“It means we won’t take teams out onto the river, it’s an excessive amount of of a danger to have folks in that setting.”