SO SHIRE hosted a beach and land clean up as well as an information and reusable product stall with War on Waste Sutherland Shire as part of the Cronulla Surfing Academy’s Shire Shred at Wanda on 19th May! What a stunning Autumn day in the shire and wonderful community engagement. Run as part of #YouthWeek2019 this surf and community event for groms of Sutherland Shire included a surf competition, skate sessions, yoga, food trucks, face painting and LIVE music, beach clean-up, and stalls, run in partnership with Sutherland Shire Council, Headspace Miranda and Belong Inc.
Thank you to all our registered 29 Volunteers who cleaned up the beach in between the music, the surfing, the skating, the eating etc and to all those who came to ask questions, supported us and bought some reusable products to start or add to their single use plastic free journey! How awesome for the groms to hang out with their idol pro surfer Connor O’Leary
A special shout out of encouragement to the trio of young girls who came back for a clean-up three times!
Most of the rubbish was picked up litter from the sand dunes, beach and surrounding areas with some packaging of the actual event sneaking in!
A quick summary:
205 cigarette butts,
28 straws,
12 plastic cutlery and pieces,
19 plastic lollipop sticks and 2 paper lollipop sticks,
4 single use throwaway coffee cups with lids and 4 extra lids,
7 plastic cable ties,
5 balloons,
14 clothing and shoe pieces,
5 tin cans,
1 piece of fibre glass lined wood,
string and rope,
22 rubber/foam remnants from boards and thongs
16 wooden pieces,
15 wooden ice cream sticks,
35 pieces of dried food skins,
22 aluminium foil wrappers,
10 metal caps,
5 pieces of strapping band,
10 Band-Aids,
140 paper and cardboard pieces,
4 tetra packs poppers,
9 plastic cups,
6 plastic lined drink cups,
24 bottle top lids (that we will recycle with Envision thanks to @Bella Cibo Caringbah),
54 plastic bags,
120 pieces of plastic food intact packaging,
2 metres of fishing line,
2 fishing hooks and over 10 fishing lures and sinkers,
25 hard bits of small or broken plastic,
34 soft plastic remnants
(pieces of bags etc),
18 items and pieces of polystyrene including 4 foam coffee cups,
65 tissues but only one wet wipe,
….and the surprise was that we only PET bottles we had were 5 and 3 glass bottles (with many glass pieces) which might suggest the Return and Earn scheme is working?
The main beaches of Bate Bay are cleaned everyday by Sutherland Shire Council lifeguards with a surf rake machine picking up after litter bugs and anything washed up in storm waves, so you can see although the beach looks clean, most of these items were hidden from first glance. Most of the items we pick up have been littered on purpose or blown to the beach from bins, drains, cars, backpacks etc.
The best way to avoid this pollution is to stop using single products by refusing single use packaging and consumer items (do you really need that plastic straw for 5 minutes?!) , reusing the items we already have, choosing reusable packaging such as cutlery, straws, refillable containers and bottles, and if you need single use, choose and support businesses that supply compostable alternatives! And always bin your rubbish in the appropriate bins – make sure they do not blow out of the bin and recycle items in the correct bins! Because no one likes to surf or swim or skate in rubbish!
#swapforthesea #plasticfreesutherlandshire #soshire #donttrashwhatyoulove #binthebutt #waronwastesutherlandshire #shireshred
