Volunteers clean up 3000kg of rubbish from Perth beaches

MORE than two tonnes of plastic waste has been collected from WA beaches.

Volunteers cleaned up 120 beaches across the State on October 13 and 14, including Trigg, Scarborough and Brighton, as part of the annual Tangaroa Blue WA Marine Debris Project.

Organisers estimate about 80,000 items and 3000kg of rubbish was removed from the coastline, with plastic waste accounting for 70 per cent of items.

These included hard plastic bits, plastic film remnants, plastic food wrapping and bottles, plastic lids and plastic bags.

Other common items found were cigarette butts and filters, paper and cardboard, rope pieces, aluminium cans and broken glass.

In Fremantle, hundreds of plastic resin pellets were found littered among seaweed, with the foundation believing they were entering the ocean as waste from plastic manufacturing or leakage from local transport.

Interesting finds across WA included a fully intact chocolate food wrapper from 1992, a top of the range drone camera, an Australian flag and a medical vial of suspicious white powder that was forwarded to Border Force for testing.

Tangaroa Blue Foundation founder Heidi Taylor said the event enabled data collection and encouraged people to change behaviour.

“Out of all the environmental issues that the world is currently facing, marine debris and ocean pollution should be the easiest one to stop,” she said.

“Participating in a beach clean up raises awareness of what’s washing up on our shores and what humans are carelessly discarding in the environment.

“We encourage people to consider what they see and find and make small changes to their own behaviour by being conscious of what they consume and how they manage their waste.”