Shameful images show swans and otters forced to swim through streams of discarded litter

These shameful images highlight how plastic litter is blighting the lives of wild animals in our waterways. A Rainbow Trout seen swimming with litter photographed in the River Wye, Derbyshire A brown trout swims next to a plastic bottle in the river Derwent in Derbyshire a tributary of the river Trent Between March 22 and April 23, we hope to enlist half a million people to pick up litter in their local areas. He said: ‘The otter was a young female taken on the Little Ouse in Norfolk, the rubbish had collected in fallen trees by the bank creating a heart dropping sight watching this fantastic creature having to hunt in a sea of plastic.’ Describing his pictures of brown trout, Mr Perks said: ‘The river Trent is my local river and it goes through the city of Nottingham, lots of litter gets blown in and even thrown into the river by the public, meaning the local wildlife have to feed around the rubbish, in fact it hardly fazes them as they are so used to the sight of litter.’ As well as the large pieces of plastic we can see, all rivers in the UK are thought to be polluted by microplastics. A mute swan is photographed next to a plastic bag in the river Trent, the third longest in the UK ‘Over 68,000 people have already signed a petition asking the Government to set and properly enforce targets to reduce throwaway plastic which would help to restore our nature. ‘Our investigation into plastic pollution in Britain’s major rivers will gather scientific and photographic evidence to make sure the Government listens.’ It is easy to sign up to the Great British Spring Clean.