June 11 & 12 saw a celebration for both World Environment Day and World Oceans Day with events in Far North Queensland. On Saturday 18 volunteers hit the beach at Cooya for a beach clean up effort. In 3 hours volunteers removed 2052 bits of rubbish weighing 112.75kg. The debris included 474 beer cans, 102 beer stubbies, 57 other glass bottles, 158 bits of broken glass, 63 shopping bags, 187 food wrappers and 127m of fishing line. With those statistics it’s not all that hard to see what is impacting this beach the most!
All volunteers were rewarded with a $5 trip to the Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas including “Lunch with the Lorikeets” on Sunday, where Tangaroa Blue was also invited to have an educational display highlighting the impacts of marine debris on the local marine environment. Habitat crew also gave talks on fauna that is impacted by marine debris inviting volunteers to make friends with native birds, snakes and turtles!
Thanks to the Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas for partnering with Tangaroa Blue for this event, which is planned to run annually! Also thanks to Poseidon Outer Reef Cruises for the use of their van to transport volunteers and the Cairns Regional Council for disposing of the bags of rubbish after the event.
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