September 23rd, 2009 saw the official launch of the Australian Marine Debris Initiative with presentations at a number of schools in Broome, northwest Western Australia and a beach clean up conducted by students of St Mary’s College.
Grade 6 students and teacher joined in for a beach clean up on Broome’s Town Beach.
In just 30 minutes students had collected 3 bags of rubbish totalling 1548 individual pieces of rubbish! It was amazing how much rubbish was acutally found on the beach that actually looked quite clean before the clean up took place!
The most common items were 382 cigarette butts, 300 pieces of broken glass, 253 lids and bottletops and 40 metres of fishing line as well as one nappy!
We look forward to receiving more data from St Mary’s and welcome to the Australian Marine Debris Initiative!
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