Wildlife charities have welcomed the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)'s swift action to ban ships across the world from discharging all forms of high-viscosity polyisobutylene (PIB) into the sea during tank cleaning operations. PIB was the chemical responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 seabirds on the south-west coast earlier this year. The tragedy, the largest marine pollution incident of its kind in the region since Torrey Canyon, shocked thousands of people.
We thankfully have not suffered this chemical in our waters but off the Devon coast even hardened fishermen were moved by the numbers of struggling birds they saw in the Channel.