Film star Bonnie Wright, best known for playing Ginny Weasley in all eight films of the Harry Potter series, was on the banks of the River Wye yesterday, March 5th.

She joined Greenpeace volunteers and scientists to launch a nationwide survey of plastic pollution in the UK’s major rivers and collected water samples from three different points along the Wye using a filtering device called a manta net.

The samples will be sent back to the University of Exeter, where they will be analysed and compared with samples from other major rivers across the UK. The results will be collated into a scientific report on the plastic load in UK rivers to be released later this year.

Bonnie said: “I was shocked to learn that most of the plastic that I’ve ever used is still somewhere here on earth. And yet every year we just keep producing more and more (at a rate that isn’t sustainable) and there’s nowhere for it all to go.

It’s killing wildlife and there are growing concerns that it may be affecting our health - so we’re here today to urge the UK Government to take action: to set targets to phase out single-use plastics.”