On March 2nd, 2011 Gordonvale State School hosted a workshop for students from 4 local schools in their Excelsior Program. The theme of the workshop was “sew a seed and grow a tree”.
During the workshop, Heidi Taylor from Tangaroa Blue presented information about marine debris and its impacts, along with practical ways that we can all make a difference to our marine and coastal environment. Photo left: Lucy Peterson from Gordonvale State School and Heidi Taylor help collect debris along O’Leary’s Creek.
Students then assisted in a clean up along O’Leary’s Creek which runs along the back of the school. In just 45mins, students cleaned up 814 items weighing 53kg from 350m of creek. The most common items were food wrappers, plastic bags, 95 soft drink cans and 35 golf balls!
To celebrate Clean Up Australia Day on March 6th, students joined members of the Gordonvale community to clean up an additional 500m of O’Leary’s Creek where another 223kg of debris was removed in just 1.5hrs!
Volunteers hauled out 80kg of carpet and 60kg of conveyor belt along with 550 food wrappers, 91 plastic drink bottles 163 cans and another 13 golf balls!
Students are currently using the information from these clean ups to write a report which we will post in the near future.
Thank you to everyone involved in helping stop these items of rubbish from continuing its journey from the stormwater drains, into the creeks and ultimately into the ocean!
Published by