In a great display of community spirit, Yuku Baja Muliku recently joined forces with environmental marine charity Tangaroa Blue for the 5th annual Archer Point beach clean-up.
More than 40 volunteers, many of them Yuku Baja Muliku junior rangers and Cooktown locals, scoured the coastline for eight hours, picking up a vast array of marine debris before painstakingly categorising, counting and logging each item.
This tremendous effort is reinforced by some alarming numbers, with Tangaroa Blue data reporting that the day’s efforts netted approximately fourteen and a half thousand pieces of collected rubbish, including 2300 bottle caps and a staggering 900 rubber thongs.
All up, more than 500 kilograms of trash was removed from Archer Point beach.
Tangaroa Blue will now use the collated records to actively apply pressure onto governments and communities from where the pollution originates. Source reduction through data is the charity’s overall aspiration in tackling the global issue of rubbish in our oceans.
Director of Tangaroa Blue Foundation Heidi Taylor recognised the importance of partnering with local community groups like Yuku Baja Muliku in ensuring sustainable coasts and oceans.
“The long term commitment from the Yuku Baja Muliku Rangers and Junior Rangers to remove and record marine debris from Archer Point is continually improving the health of the local environment and reducing threats on wildlife,” Taylor said.
“The data collected during these events is also contributing vital information to the Australian Marine Debris Database which is used to find practical solutions that stop the flow of plastics and rubbish into our oceans at the source.”
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