GERALDTON RESIDENTS ANSWER THE BEACH CLEAN UP CALL

Participants gathered to hear instructions before heading out to collect rubbish.

Proving that Geraldton residents love their beaches, more than 100 people showed up to take part in Geraldton’s Massive Beach Clean Up last Sunday. The Geraldton-wide beach clean-up complemented the 10th anniversary of the West Australian Beach Clean Up conducted by the Tangaroa Blue Foundation.

Tangaroa Blue Foundation continue to collect and collate data on the rubbish washing up on our beaches every day. The information collected helps identify the sources of environmental contamination, assisting development of innovations to reduce future impacts.

Sorting in action!

Although Geraldton Coast Care Groups are no stranger to annual beach clean-ups, having conducted smaller scale clean ups for over a decade, it was decided Geraldton was ready for a larger city-wide event.

On Sunday, many Geraldton locals joined forces to be a part of Geraldton’s Massive Beach Clean Up, organised by the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council (NACC) and the City of Greater Geraldton (CGG). Locals gathered on the foreshore to register before heading out to their favourite beaches between Drummonds Cove and Cape Burney, with collection bags in hand.

Participants then returned to the foreshore to enjoy a BBQ lunch and live music from local artist Daron Keogh whilst they sorted through their bags and recorded their findings.

Some unusual items returned to the sorting stations, including a discarded microwave, pieces of bed head and a car jack.

Dr Mic Payne, Coastal and Marine Program Coordinator at NACC said, “it was a fantastic turn out with over 93 people registering on the day, and 260kg of rubbish collected over 14 kilometres of coastline.”

“All of which would not have been possible without huge contributions from the rest of the project partners: Drummond Cove Progress Association, Point Moore Coastcare, Sunset Beach Coastcare, the Department of Fisheries and the Batavia Coast Maritime Institute. In addition, Apex Australia, Culinary HQ, Lattitude 28 and the Water Corporation all donated prizes or equipment for the event,” said Dr Payne.

As a result of the amazing response from the public, NACC and the CGG hopes to continue this event in the future with plans to make it bigger and better next year.