AN actress best known for starring in the Harry Potter films joined scientists and campaigners on the River Wye as part of a nationwide survey into plastic pollution.

Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley, worked with Greenpeace volunteers and academics by examining micro plastics in Welsh waterways in Monmouthshire.

Micro plastics are tiny plastic particles that come from degraded plastics and synthetic clothing can be toxic to wildlife and fragile ecosystems and represent a vast proportion of the plastics that flow directly from our rivers out into the sea.

On Tuesday, March 5, the actor and activist collected water samples from three different points along the Wye using a filtering device called a manta net.

She 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.”

The samples will be sent to the University of Exeter, where they will be analysed and compared with samples from other major rivers across the UK.

University of Exeter ecology lecturer Kirsten Thompson said: “There are a lot of studies showing how much plastic is in our seas and oceans, but very few so far investigating the amounts and types of plastics carried along by our rivers".