Origin and Conservation Volunteers Australia at the Beach!

In March this year Origin achieved the milestone of half a million green energy accounts – and to celebrate they partnered with Conservation Volunteers Australia to help contribute to the health of the Great Barrier Reef. Ten projects along the Queensland Coast from Brisbane to Cairns have been sponsored including beach clean-ups to remove rubbish that can be fatal for marine animals.

Origin’s sponsored projects will impact on half a million m2 (50 hectares) of land to ensure the health of waterways – bring together more than 500 customers and employees for a better environment and involve more than 500 volunteer days. As well as the beach clean ups, projects including weed control in catchment areas to help restore native biodiversity, revegetation projects to help prevent bank erosion and improve water quality, fencing programs to keep out uncontrolled stock and seed collection to provide an insurance policy.

This Thursday (2 July) and Friday (3 July) Conservation Volunteers Australia’s Cairns Regional Office will be conducting beach clean-ups working down the coast between Cairns and Port Douglas – including Yule Point, Pebbly and Wanghetti beach, Buchan Point.

All rubbish will be collected, sorted and collated using survey forms developed by Tangaroa Blue Foundation and information on the amount and type and rubbish collected fed back into a local and national database. The information collected will provide a sense of the state of our marine environment and the human impact on them. Accumulating data from beach cleanups provides a growing knowledge and base for conducting public education and influencing changes of practice at both individual, community, industry and even government levels.

Disposal of the debris collected is kindly being provided by Cairns Regional Council.

Media enquiries contact Lucy Don, Undertow Media 0402 418 434.