As part of the Brisbane River Clean Up Program students from the Brisbane Water Secondary College’s “Bushcraft” and Support Units along with 5 of their teachers joined community members including Brisbane Waters Oyster Grower Simon Funnel, Hunter Catchment Management Authority’s Rob Carrera and coordinator Graham Johnston to clean up 200m of Pelican Island.
The objective for the day was to remove small litter items, and commence stacking larger items on the north western tip of Pelican Island.
The low tide made entry to the foreshore difficult, with deep mud present, but also exposed abundant “oyster mesh roles’ below the tidal mark. This was removed into the barge, due to difficulty in dragging to foreshore. All items were transferred to “dry bank” southern foreshore at Pelican Island.
“Confronting” large volume of “oyster products” which were placed in four stacks on the dry foreshore as well as eight tyres also collected in the 200 metres cleared. Approx 3 tonne stacked in total! Thirty bags of small residential litter was collected and this included plenty of beer bottles, plastic bottles and containers. All bagged litter deposited at Woy Woy Tip.
Even after the clean up event there was still abundant rubbish, both large and small present, with only a small proportion of the previously surveyed site completed. An agreed estimate that 90% of larger rubbish is associated with “oyster product”.
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