During the end of the year, students from the Santa Monica campus of St Bernards College, located along Victoria’s stunning Surf Coast once again completed their monitoring of the local shoreline for marine debris.
Studens covered pretty much the same stretch of coastline in both October and November – from Moggs Creek to Grassy Creek near Aireys Inlet. This was to enable students to see how much had accumulated in the same areas over the intervening month. Most of what we found was in the river, creek and drain mouths.
The weather had included some heavy rains in these two months with a lot of debris coming down the storm water system, being flushed out to sea then washing up on king tides. There was an enormous number of assorted plastic pieces, more than 284, most no bigger than your fingernail. We made a special effort in the Dec clean up to focus on these.
The total of marine debris over the last 2 months was 1146 individual pieces making a total of 7260 items removed from the local coastline during 2011 with the assistance of 207 students!
Have a great Christmas to everyone from Santa Monica and we look forward to hearing from you in February when school resumes!
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