Members of the British-Irish Council have pledged to take ’further, collaborative action to tackle marine litter’.

But they haven’t spelt out how they’d do that.

At a ’marine litter symposium’, hosted by the Scottish government on Friday, environment ministers from across the council’s member administrations - which includes the Isle of Man - committed to ’working together, with industry, to develop a solution for the recycling of end-of-life fishing gear’.

Members also said they’d work together to ;further reduce the loss of pre-production plastics, commonly referred to as nurdles, across the supply chain, and also to improve marine litter education for young people, and the fishing industry’.

The symposium took place at Strathclyde University and was chaired by Scottish Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham.

Geoffrey Boot MHK, Minister for the Environment, Food and Agriculture, was there.

He said: ’This is an international issue, so a united, joined up approach with other British-Irish Council members will help us all to reduce this problem and by sharing our ideas we can take further, necessary steps towards protecting the international marine environment, and as an Island, continue to protect Biosphere Isle of Man, our beautiful beaches and marine nature reserves.’