Cliff Notes
- Ten Greenpeace activists were arrested after a protest that involved suspending themselves from the Forth Road Bridge to prevent an Ineos tanker from delivering fracked gas.
- The demonstration lasted for 24 hours, effectively halting the tanker’s journey due to timing constraints with high tides.
- Greenpeace claims the protest raised awareness about plastic production issues and the need for a global plastics treaty to regulate production.
Ten Greenpeace activists arrested after suspending themselves from bridge outside Edinburgh | UK News
Ten Greenpeace activists have been arrested after suspending themselves from a bridge over a river to halt a tanker carrying fracked gas.
The Forth Road Bridge outside Edinburgh was closed on Friday due to the demonstration, with Police Scotland alerted shortly after 1pm.
The protesters ended up dangling around 25m above the water level at high tide.
The group said its activists had prevented the Ineos tanker from delivering the gas for a full 24 hours, because the vessel could only travel to the Ineos petrochemical plant at nearby Grangemouth during high tides.
Its specially trained activists began climbing down their ropes on Saturday morning.
Greenpeace said all 10 descended safely and were voluntarily transported to Port Edgar in South Queensferry, where it said they were arrested by officers from Police Scotland on suspicion of culpable and reckless conduct.
Police Scotland confirmed five men aged between 35 and 40, as well as five women aged between 25 and 42, had been arrested.
It said further inquiries were ongoing and the Forth Road Bridge remained closed to traffic as of Saturday morning.
Amy Cameron, programme director at Greenpeace UK, said: “By blocking Ineos, we’ve drawn global attention to the company’s bottomless appetite for plastic production, false solutions and profit for its billionaire boss Jim Ratcliffe.”
Describing the “plastic pollution problem” as “massive”, she added: “Less than 10% of plastic is currently recycled globally, and this is set to rise to just 17% by 2060, while the amount of plastic we’re producing is set to triple.
“The only solution is to address the problem at source which means securing a strong global plastics treaty that imposes legally-binding caps on plastic production.”
Greenpeace insists its protest was safe and caused “minimal disruption”.
It stressed the climbers had spent weeks training for the demonstration and pointed out the Forth Road Bridge carries low volumes of bus, cycle and pedestrian traffic.