Thousands of white plastic bottles have been washed up along the South Hams coast and estuaries.

During the past month, small, plastic Otrivin bottles have been appearing in large numbers on beaches and in rocky coves along the coast from Start Bay to Wembury and Plymouth Sound.

Otrivin, a nasal decongestant, is sold by GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Among the finds was a large plastic bag containing 495 bottles, washed up at East Portlemouth and retrieved from the estuary at Ditch End, by Liz Taylor.In other parts of the South Hams, David Moir found 236 bottles in an alcove at Bigbury-on-Sea on Christmas Day, and another 24 at Westcombe earlier in December; Steve Broad said he had found some around Start Bay and Prawle Point; Peter Moore, of Forest and Beach, said he had found some along Frogmore Creek; Elodie Green and Matt Bickle picked up as many as 100 along the coast from Ivy Cove to Lannacombe; and Gary Jolliffe, of Till the Coast is Clear, found some at Lannacombe.It is likely there are many hundreds more bottles in less accessible coves and beaches, all along the coast.We contacted GSK, which produces Otrivin, but it said it was not the manufacturer of the bottles. However, we have been unable to establish who the manufacturer was – but the bottles do bear the acronym CIBA.

A GSK spokesman said: “GSK shares public concern about the environmental impact from excessive use of plastic packaging.

“As part of our commitment to reducing our environmental impact, we are undertaking a comprehensive assessment of how we use plastics in the packaging of our products.

“We already have a number of initiatives to reduce plastic use, increase use of recycled plastic content and encourage the recycling of plastic components. We will continue to seek further opportunities to innovate in an effort to reduce our plastic footprint.”

In our efforts to track down where the bottles might have come from, we discovered environmental campaign groups and individuals had recently found bottles as far afield as the Isle of Wight, Cornwall and Dannes in northern France.

It appears the bottles may have fallen off a ship – possibly many years ago – and their container has recently broken open.

The Maritime & Coastguard Agency said it had received our report to HM Coastguard at Falmouth about the number of bottles washing up on beaches.

A spokesman said: “All shore-line or at-sea pollution should, in the first instance, be reported to the Coastguard.

“This will trigger the appropriate follow-up action to deal with the pollution and, if feasible, to identify the source.

“In general terms, it is the polluter’s responsibility to arrange – and pay for – clean-up activity but where there is no identifiable source, the clean-up falls to the local authority which technically ‘owns’ the relevant beach, coastline or harbour.”

If you find any of these bottles on coastal visits, email [email protected]; let us know where and please send us a picture if you can.

See today’s paper for more as Kristen Bounds goes cleaning up the coast.