Yr Wyddfa: Can Wales' highest mountain really go plastic-free?

Image source, Getty Images

The peak of Yr Wyddfa rises 1,085m (3,560ft) above the Welsh landscape.

It is the highest point in Britain until you get to Scotland’s Ben Nevis, 260 miles (418km) away as the crow flies.

The remoteness of Yr Wyddfa, or Snowdon as it is also known, surely makes it one of the most pristine environments in the land.

But research shows it is as much under siege as many more populous places from a growing threat to the natural world – plastic.

A survey carried out for Eryri – also called Snowdonia- National Park found microplastics in the soil samples all the way along the Llanberis path to the summit.

Significant amounts were also found at the peak itself, to say nothing of the volume of visible litter left behind on the slopes.

The mountain and its protectors are trying to fight back. The park launched the Plastic Free Yr Wyddfa project in April with the aim of making the mountain the world’s first to become plastic-free.

For Alec Young, the Plastic Free Yr Wyddfa officer, this work is personal. Born and bred within the park, he returned after some years away with a background in sustainability, looking to have “a more local impact on the place that I love” and “change it for the better”.

Image source, Alec Young

There is no suggestion of environmental police guarding the entrances to Eryri, removing single-use plastic from unwary visitors.

Instead, Alec and the project’s partners are looking to encourage behaviour change in visitors, locals and business owners, some of whom are already on board.

The aim is to significantly reduce all litter on the mountain, with a focus on single-use plastics.

Fiona and Rob Nicholson run Plas Coch Guest House in Llanberis.

Previously headteachers in south east England, they “wanted to stop being tourists who came to the area” and contribute to the local economy and environment.

Image source, Fiona and Rob Nicholson

With 95% of their guests coming specifically to climb Yr Wyddfa, the couple have paid close attention to how they can help walkers to eat and drink without having an environmental impact.

Fiona said: “We launched our packed lunch initiative, and called it fuel your mountain day, because we thought it’s not just a lunch. It’s got to get you up the mountain and back down safely as well.

“We ask guests what sandwich they would like and we make that, and then we have a brown paper bag to put that in, and then we lay out those other things they can take with them.

“We’ve got metal water bottles that they can take. We’ve got flasks and ask them what hot drink they’d like in there.

“We have fresh fruit and we do send them up the mountain with a green composting bag and ask them to bring back everything that they take with them.”

There is also a recycling station at the guest house where guests can deposit their used paper bags and any food waste – or soft plastics if they have some of their own – for composting or recycling. They also have a water refill station for passing tourists.

Image source, Fiona and Rob Nicholson

They have stopped offering anything that comes in single-use plastic, such as packs of biscuits or UHT milk pots, and replaced them with fresh home-baked flapjacks, Welsh cakes and jugs of fresh milk which guests can help themselves to.

The couple said making such changes had saved them about £1,000 a year on waste charges, as they no longer need to pay for commercial refuse collection.

“Every time we’ve done something to remove single-use plastics, it feels like we’ve improved the quality of what we do,” said Rob.

John Harold, director of Cymdeithas Eryri, the Snowdonia Society, said the organisation had been at the “sharp end” of clearing litter from the mountain and the wider national park for over 50 years.

“Over time it’s become increasingly dominated by single use plastics,” he said.

Image source, John Harold

John cited a litter collection carried out on just one section of path which yielded several hundred disposable drinks bottles.

“When you multiply that across the area and across the year, these are phenomenal numbers,” he said.

Cymdeithas Eryri removes around a tonne of litter from Yr Wyddfa and the main tourist hotspots in Eryri every year. As most of it is light plastic waste, it amounts to a huge volume.

He said the project was about “respect”, “pride” and “inspiring people”.

He added: “This isn’t a place where you can police your way to an answer.”

Image source, Snowdon Mountain Railway

Snowdon Mountain Railway operates the visitor train and Hafod Eryri, the café at the top, as well as a number of outlets at the mountain’s base.

It is preparing to resume journeys all the way up Yr Wyddfa and to reopen the café in June after nearly four years of pandemic-induced closure.

The railway’s commercial manager, Vince Hughes, said his first meeting with Alec had opened his eyes to areas of potential change.

“I think a lot of people might think it means plastic bottles, drink bottles etc, but as he explained, if you look at our other retail areas, the amount of single-use plastic was going unnoticed,” Mr Hughes said.

One “easy fix” was magnets arriving individually wrapped in plastic which was immediately discarded when they went on display.

“Why are they putting them into these packets that we don’t want and nobody’s using?” he asked.

Supplying a café at the top of a mountain without its own water supply is no mean feat if you hope to avoid plastic use completely.

The café needs 10,000 litres of water transported up by train every day to cover its own uses and toilet requirements, and cannot suddenly switch to refilling bottles for people.

Revamping supplies in the café will also be a challenging task. Switching to cans has not previously been a success because they are not resealable.

But solutions are being explored. A water borehole company is to make preliminary investigations on whether it could extract drinking water from the mountain itself, which could be a gamechanger for the café.

Alec said it was important not to “demonise” plastic which, when used appropriately, can be fantastically useful.

The trick instead will be to encourage visitors to reduce usage and remove the single-use plastic they bring with them.

“A lot of it is around, how do you convince people to prepare better, think differently, ‘refill before the hill’, reuse and recycle,” Alec said.

So what do visitors to Yr Wyddfa make of the initiative?

“We’re all about sustainability – I think that’s a really positive message,” said Catherine Munton, from Newcastle upon Tyne.

She and husband Lee were not surprised to hear the amount of rubbish collected. “It’s awful that people don’t take it home,” added Catherine.

Michelle Marshall and Sharon Langton, from Middleton, near Manchester, said more bins could help.

“Why don’t people just put [rubbish] in their bag. Everybody has got a back-pack – just take it home,” added Sharon.

Derek Littlejohn, from Aberdeenshire was disappointed by the amount of plastic rubbish he had seen.

“Having just walked up there and seen how much plastic is on the actual mountain itself, it’s a shame to see it in that sort of state,” he said.He supported going plastic-free.

“Anything that stops that from happening would be a fantastic thing to do.”

“I feel that as a hiker you probably have a job to appreciate all the nature that you are hiking in,” said Andrew Franco, from California.”Reusable water bottles, thermoses – great ideas. You don’t need plastic bottles.”If you’ve got snacks, wrap them up in kitchen paper or parchment paper – it’s easy. You don’t need plastic for whatever you are taking with you.”

Additional reporting by George Herd.

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