The 2011 school year started with the students from St Bernard’s College Santa Monica Campus running their monthly monitoring beach clean up event along a new area of Victoria’s Surf Coast.
A report from Mark Smith and the students explained that due to the protected east facing location, and the prevailing winds, the section of coastline between Aireys Inlet Lighthouse and Urquharts Bluff was a relatively clean part of the coast compared with other sections that students have montiored over the last couple of years. The tide in this area laps at the cliff faces too so there are limited stretches of beach to hold the debris if it does wash up, however the boys still enjoyed the activity, especially since it was a beautiful sunny day and they had the opportunity to swim in a big rock pool along the way!
In Melbourne for the Port Phillip Clean Beaches Coaltion Forum, Tangaroa Blue’s Heidi Taylor took the opportunity to visit Santa Monica to see the debris that had been collected. A total of 191 items including an old 55 gallon drum were removed from the beach adding to the valuble data being collected for the Australian Marine Debris Database, and helping to keep the local marine environment clean and healthy.
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