大象传媒

Football photographer Stuart Roy Clarke travels around the country's football grounds taking photographs of fans.

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Inside Out meets up with him as he captures a snapshot of life from a fan's perspective at the country鈥檚 football stadiums.听

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on the 大象传媒 News website.听

For 50 years RAF Fylingdales' mission has been to provide an early warning system of a ballistic missile attack for the Western world.

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Today it has been upgraded to cater for modern needs and its powerful radar beam tracks missiles in every direction as well as tracking space debris.

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Presenter Nicola Rees goes inside RAF Fylingdales to see how the base would respond to a potential missile attack.

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on the 大象传媒 News website.

Marine expert Paul Rose has warned that the vast quantities of plastics which litter the UK's oceans are not only a real danger to sea life but could also threaten humans too.

Paul visits Newcastle, Scarborough and Bempton, near Bridlington as he reports on the problem for 大象传媒听Inside Out.

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Paul is one of the UK鈥檚 most experienced deep sea divers and marine experts,听explains that 70% of marine litter is plastic and that the vast majority of this waste comes from the land.听

He shows that, as plastic waste breaks down in the sea, it is consumed by fish, shellfish and birds with often dire consequences. There are also fears that it could be entering the human food chain.

鈥淚鈥檝e been diving the world鈥檚 oceans for over 40 years 鈥� and plastic waste is an increasing problem,鈥� says Paul.

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鈥淚t鈥檚 out there in the ecosystem, getting into the foodchain, harming wildlife. And as a 鈥榯op of the foodchain鈥� predator myself, goodness knows what it might be doing to me.鈥澨�

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Raw plastic

For听10 years Paul was Base Commander of the Rothera Research Station in Antarctica and he was awarded Her Majesty The Queen's Polar Medal for his services. He has led hundreds of oceanic explorations and feels passionately that more could be done to address this serious environmental threat.听听

鈥淚n its raw form plastic is moved around the globe [on ships] as billions of tiny pellets that will be remoulded at a later date. And when these items find their way into our oceans you can see how easy it is for a fish or bird to mistake them for a tasty snack.鈥澨�

He visits the UK鈥檚 biggest mainland gannet colony at Bempton near Bridlington where the birds have learnt to live with the waste, lining their nests with netting and ropes.听

Measures are being taken to address the problem and new European directives being introduced in 2016 will mean that everyone will have to work hard to clean up our waters.听

But a study in Newcastle has shown that, for some animals, this could come far too late.听

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The programme visits The Dove Marine Laboratory near Newcastle which has seen the devastating effect that plastic waste is having on bird populations.

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Paul performs an autopsy on a fulmar, one of the UK鈥檚 prize species which is closely related to the albatross, and is dismayed to find a jagged piece of plastic in its stomach.听

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Impact on seabirds

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Jan Van Franeker leading the research says: 鈥淭hese larger items of plastic are ... horribly harming our seabirds as they lodge in their stomachs causing blockages which effectively slowly starve the birds to death.鈥�

But some people are making real efforts to improve the situation. At Scarborough, Paul gets his waterproofs on to help out a team of volunteers who regularly scour the beach.

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After just an hour Paul gathers more than 9 kilos of rubbish. He also praises the Clean Tyne project, who collect around 400 tonnes of marine debris each year from the river, before it can make its way into the sea.

Paul urges us all to take the problem seriously.听

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鈥淭he big question is just how far up the food chain this plastic waste will actually go. But there鈥檚 one way to minimise the risk to wildlife and to ourselves and that鈥檚 to do all we can to stop plastic getting into the sea in the first place.鈥�