Three Tangaroa Blue crew camped at Alligator Creek over 3 days in late June for a beach clean-up and data collection activity with the HopeVale Indigenous Rangers and HopeVale School. On the first day, the team collected just over 50kgs of marine debris in two hours. On the second day 108kgs was removed in the morning, and when the team was joined by 11 students from HopeVale School, who in their cleaning frenzy, added another 35kg of marine debris from their local beach.
Through our observations and discussions, we established that the source of a lot of this collected rubbish was from the adjacent campsite, so the students did a big clean up of the area, and collected a further 76kg of rubbish that could have potentially found its way to the nearby ocean! Well done to the HopeVale students for taking a proactive action towards stopping marine debris from occurring in the first place!
At the end of our visit, we sorted through what could be recycled, and successfully diverted 1 cubic metre of plastic, half a cubic metre of rope and half a cubic metre of aluminum cans from land fill. Another success for AMDI in Cape York!
Thanks to the Hopevale Shire Council, Hopevale Congress Rangers and Hopevale School students for their help on the beach. Also thanks to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Indigenous Partnerships for their support.
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