Eco Barge volunteers and crew headed out to Whitsunday Island on the 5th of November, 2009 for their monthly clean up and pulled off a massive 651kg of debris from the beach between Grimston Point and Bluff Point!
The Eco Barge anchored in Woodwark bay to clean Grimson Point, we managed to pick up 15 bags and a total of 33kgs from Grimston Point. Our volunteers had morning tea at Woodwark Bay to refuel on engery before continuing along the east side of Grimston Point removing all marine debris from the coast towards Bluff Point. We found a large amount of marine debris which had accumulated in a small stretch of coastline, we collected a total of 618 kilos most of this was boat wreckage parts and plastic bottles.
Record of marine debris for this coastline:
- 59 bags of general marine debris = 178.5 kgs
- Wood with nails and paint (boat wreckage) = 230.4 kgs
- Fiberglass (boat wreckage) = 204 kgs
- Plastic Drums = 18.7 kgs
- Polystyrene/ plastic tubing = 13 kgs
- Cane chair = 6.5 kgs
Total for the day was 651 kgs.
Our volunteers found a 48cm male dead green sea turtle that had been on the shoreline for around two days. Libby Edge collected the sea turtle and notified the stranding hotline, a representative of Parks and Wildlife came to Edges Boatyard to record the turtle’s details. Parks and Wildlife have had a large number of sea turtles this size dying in the Mackay/Whitsunday region and their cause of death is unknown.,/p>
The Eco barge arrived back at the Whitsunday Sailing Club at 1530.
This day was a huge success the Eco barge was full to the brim with marine debris and all volunteers had a great day and requested to come out on a future Eco Barge clean up mission.
Thank you, Reef Catchments for helping the Eco Barge remove this high amount of marine debris from our local waterways.
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