Epic Beach Clean Up

Friends of Otway National Park &
St Bernard’s College Students

8th May 2015

Last month the Friends of Otway National Park as well as staff and students from St Bernard's College Essendon conducted a huge beach clean-up.  The friends and students with assistance from Apollo Bay park rangers covered more than 15km of wild ocean beaches and rock shelves to the immediate east and west of Cape Otway.  The stretch to the east of the lighthouse – from Parker River to Crayfish Bay, was relatively clean, as it is less open to the swell, but to the west, Station Beach and Aire River mouth yielded a huge amount of debris.  Most notable was the amount of synthetic rope caught on the rocks to the west of the river mouth and the large plastic spools and buoys that were lodged high on the rock shelves.  They also collected more than 2500 pieces of small plastic, none bigger than a 20 cent piece.

The students are involved in the Tangaroa Blue program which aims at cleaning up rubbish, sorting and recording it on beaches around Australia.  This program helps to physically remove the rubbish, identify problem items and record them.  See further details about this program at www.tangaroablue.org.

This was a fantastic effort and the students are to be congratulated on their efforts!  We look forward to seeing them back in the future.

What they found is recorded on this Tangaroa Data Collection Sheet.