Last weekend was the 20th anniversary WA Beach Clean Up. The Monkhouse family volunteered to clean a section of the Swan River foreshore from the Canning Bridge to the Narrows Bridge. We collected over 60kg of rubbish – much of it boating related. Besides locating a 3.7m aluminium dinghy (reported to DOT) and a rudder, we picked up thousands of items including:
- 123 plastic drink bottle tops
- 68 chocolate wrappers (Cadbury koalas are still popular)
- 27 disposable coffee cup lids
- 25 drink containers
- 25m of various ropes
- 21 plastic bait bags
- 7 tennis balls
- 6 plastic straws
- 5 syringes
- 4 shoes (non-matching)
- 3 thongs
- 3 nappies
- 2 golf balls
- 2 stubby coolers (with stubby enclosed)
- 2 sponges
- 1 croc (not the type with teeth)
- 1 steering wheel
- 1 broken fishing rod
- 1 set of mooring lines
- 1 pen mooring line (in great condition so I kept that one)
- 1 sailing glove
- 1 umbrella
- 1 large fender (with cover) in poor condition
- 1 tarp
Although we collected a great deal of debris we fell a bit short on classifying each item as part of the Australian Marine Debris Initiative. The AMDI is a citizen science project which seeks to identify the source of the rubbish for the purpose of prevention (rather than just collection).
Graeme Heather Sam & Josh Monkhouse
