Girls wage war on waste

The girls have designed a massive mural to reinforce the message that careless rubbish dumping has a devastating effect on marine life.

Their pictures and slogans now feature on a recycling firm’s 50-feet trailer which will collect plastics and other waste material across Scotland.

Christine Jenkins (14) produced the graphics while Megan Owens (15) and 14-year-old Erin Keaton came up with the slogans ‘Marine Life Matters’ and ‘Be Part of the Solution not Part of the Pollution’.

All pupils at Our Lady’s High School in Motherwell, they were asked to put together a design by Newtown Waste Solutions for its new articulated lorry, which has a capacity of 44 tonnes, to encourage people to consider how they dispose of their single use plastic items.

Megan said: “We wanted to highlight how polluted the seas have become.

“Hopefully people seeing this will realise they can’t just dump everything.”

Newtown Skips employs 65 people at its Motherwell depot where rubbish is processed before plastics and other materials are sent on for recycling.

Martin McLindon, director, said: “We’re trying to raise awareness of sea pollution and the girls have come up with a fantastic mural to get the message across.

“People have to realise they can’t just throw out their rubbish and forget about it.”