A diver has taken to Facebook to express his dismay that the seabed at Mgarr ix-Xini turned from a litter-free area into one full of wet-wipes, discarded fish bones, tin foil and hundreds of cigarette butts during the Santa Marija week.

Posting before (above, left) and after (right) photos, Pete Bullen writes what he says is an open letter to the yachting and boating community in which he tells them they should be “ashamed of themselves” for spoiling what is, after all a marie protected area.

This is his post:

An open letter to the Malta yachting and boating community!

Ladies and gentlemen you are a disgrace and should be ashamed of yourselves! The photographs I post here were taken a few days apart at the start and end of Santa Maria, In the first image it shows a few of the many boats that were moored in Mgarr ix Xini, as you can see the seabed is litter free and despite the large numbers of boats the visitors to your island were able to enjoy the underwater world there which is populated by seahorses, stingrays, cuttlefish and octopus as well as so many other marine animals. It's a marine protected area, so no net fishing and, as I understand it, boats are supposed to not discharge marine toilets etc. The next two images show what your community members have done. The seabed is littered with wetwipes, which are very slow to biodegrade, toilet paper, discarded fish bones, tin foil and hundreds of cigarette butts. Do you know or care that a cigarette butt takes 100 years to biodegrade and in the process poisons 90 litres of water?

Do you care what message you are sending to the visitors to these islands? Do you have even a passing thought for the environment that your children will inherit?

I suppose at home many of you are house proud, keeping your homes spotless, many of you will faithfully recycle plastics and rubbish yet for some reason you feel that throwing your rubbish and poisons into the sea is fine as it must be out of sight, out of mind! Tourism is a massive benefit to the Maltese people, many of you or your relatives will earn a living from the industry yet you send out messages like this!

I repeat you should be ashamed of yourselves.