Bible verses inside plastic bottles are being dumped into the River Bann in Coleraine on an “industrial scale”, an environmental group has said.
The Sea2It organisation launched an appeal on social media to try and identify those responsible.
The organisation, a not-for-profit community interest company dedicated to protecting the marine environment, said it has been removing the bottles from the Bann “for years”.
In an appeal posted on social media, a spokesperson for Sea2It asked: Would any of the Coleraine churches know who is dumping bible messages in plastic bottles into the river Bann at Coleraine on this industrial scale?
“Whatever your beliefs or reason you have to spread the word of God this act is littering our beautiful river.”
The appeal continues: “Sea2it volunteers have been remove these bottles for years now and collected a shocking 670 of these bottles with messages in them in 2023. Unfortunately again a fresh 2024 batch seems to have been released into the River over the new year.
“They are always downstream of the Old Town Bridge so the person(s) must be dumping them into the river around Dunnes Stores , the foot bridge or Waterside area.
“Please can you stop doing this as its pollute our River and tying up 100’s of hours of our volunteer time removing them- when we could be tackling other immediate issues which are impacting on the River.”
The organisation also appealed to local Churches to help out with a river clean-up, saying: “If any local church group wishes to help with a clean up of our local River and address this blight please contact us info@sea2it.org”
by sara-2022
16 comments
So they’ve “progressed” from polluting religious nonsense on phone/electricity poles to now actively polluting the water with it in plastic bottles. Nice one lads. Jesus would be full of proud.
There are some lunatics out there
Wow. The situation on the hill is really no wonder. This place is a basket-case
Good luck finding out who did it in that area. A lot of crazy up there.
I wonder what chinless bible bashing wonder at the church had this bright idea.
>”They are always downstream of the Old Town Bridge so the person(s) must be dumping them into the river around Dunnes Stores , the foot bridge or Waterside area.
Incredibly depressing. Whether they’ve been done in batches or individually on a daily (?) basis someone is bound to have seen the culprit or culprits and there has to be CCTV all over the area.
No doubt Causeway Coast and Glens Council will do everything they can to help find the culprits. So they will. Definitely.
Probably something to do with the Green Pastures Cult
Helping turn water into slime, praise the lord hallelujah can I get an amen
I don’t think that’s what Sting meant by sending an SOS to the world.
Do they really think very few people here (or anywhere in this part of the world) haven’t heard of Jesus or The Bible? It’s predominantly Christian of some stripe. They’re literally trying to spread the message to people who have already heard it most of their lives.
Now they’re polluting our rivers to spread it to people who have already heard of it. It’s absurd.
In Coleraine, Jesus turned Water into Plastic.
Think they tried using glass first?
That would be significantly less bad, aside from broken glass covering the bottom of the river I mean.
It could be good publicity for some of the religious organisations if they did turn out and volunteered to help in the clean up.
I found a message in a bottle in the Foyle. It was glass with a cork in it. I’d never think of opening a plastic bottle.
It’s for the points system for getting social housing in heaven:
Level 0 (being saved/born again): gets you in and a bed in a dorm.
Level 1 (bible verses in bottles, handing out tracts): Gets you your own room. Free Netflix subscription if anybody actually reads them.
Level 2 (knocking on doors “have you heard of Jesus?”): Gets you an ensuite. Free housekeeping service if you managed to keep a door open for longer than a minute.
Level 3 (Shouting Jesus at people in town centres with a megaphone): Gets you a balcony facing the sea. Ground floor with private beach access if you got arrested.
Ever more evidence that the average Christian cares more about drawing attention to themselves than any more altruistic efforts. A sizeable donation from all the Coleraine churches to clean up God’s (green…) river would be in order, but is about as likely as the second coming in the Jet Centre bowling alley.
The plagues have returned in biblical proportions.