Thirteen rivers drain into the Menai Strait. Nine from the mainland and four from Ynys Mon. Rivers act as vectors into the Menai Strait bringing both much-needed nutrients but also toxic pollution. Research shows that just 1% of global rivers are causing 80% of ocean pollution.

In 2021 the total number of CSO releases into the Menai Strait was 4913 for a total of 42,631 hours. CSO is untreated raw sewage and can wreak havoc on marine and freshwater ecosystems.

The majority of land use around the Strait and the surrounding rivers is used for cattle and sheep farming.

Post Brexit our farmers are required to expand in order to feed the growing populations. To aid them the government has approved previously banned chemicals.

It is these chemicals being lost into the water course that will potentially have a devastating impact on wildlife in the Strait and the rivers surrounding it.

An industry on the brink of collapse

Pre Brexit Menai Strait Mussel farmers were one of the largest aqua culture producers in the U.K. Exporting 10,000 - 5,000 tonnes of mussels per year to the EU, but now exports have fallen to as little as 400 tonnes a year.

With fewer exports the industry has dwindled causing job loss and the decline of a historic industry in North Wales, stretching back generations.

The impacts of a changing climate will be felt first — and most dramatically — through our rivers and water resources. There is the potential for disaster at both ends of the scale: predictions suggest that the frequency and severity of both flooding and droughts will increase as our climate continues to heat up and weather patterns change.

With 13 rivers draining into the narrow Strait, the Menai is at risk of both erosion and flooding.

PFAS are a family of thousands of human-made substances – nicknamed “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment – that have been widely used since the 1940s in a huge range of everyday consumer products and industrial processes.

PFAS “behave like surfactants, like soaps”, says Prof Crispin Halsall, an environmental chemist at Lancaster University. “They sit at the interfaces between water and particles, water and biota, they can transfer to the atmosphere and they’re so abundant they cycle around the wider environment.”

Plastic has thousands of uses, its versatility and virtual indestructible practically unmatched in the world of synthetic materials.

Since first developing plastic in 1907, we have melded and moulded the material to fulfill our needs and desires. From bags and milk bottles to agriculture and transportation, plastic is everywhere, useful and convenient.

It isn't just large pieces that pose a threat, however - microplastics are in colossal quantities, sometimes in parts of the ocean that have never been seen by humans before.

A perfect storm of international trade, human carelessness, and climate change are bringing new species to the UK that can out-compete native flora and fauna. These factors endanger biodiversity and risk changing forever Britain’s countryside, forests, skies, and waterways.