A wheelie bin from Alabama, USA, has been discovered on a beach in Dorset after apparently travelling 5,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Beachcomber Ryan Stalker found the black bin at Bowleaze Cove near Weymouth following Storm Ingrid.
The bin, marked 'Baldwin County, Alabama', was covered in goose barnacles, marine crustaceans that thrive in warm tropical waters and cannot survive in the colder seas around the UK. This indicated the bin had spent time in the Caribbean before crossing the Atlantic.
Mr Stalker, 46, posted images on social media, where residents of Alabama identified the bin using a unique code. They believed it was lost during Hurricane Sally in September 2020, when it was swept into the Gulf of Mexico from the coastal town of Fort Morgan.
The bin took over five years to drift eastwards across the Atlantic before being washed ashore during recent winter storms. Remarkably, the local refuse department in Alabama contacted Mr Stalker to apologise for the litter, though he said it was not necessary as it was an accident.
Mr Stalker has kept the bin in his back garden while he decides what to do with it. He said: 'I saw the wheelie bin straight away but it was bigger than the ones we have here. I saw it had some barnacles attached to it so I knew it must have been in the water for some time.'
