St Bernard’s Students Epic Clean Up

Staff and students at St Bernard’s Santa Monica campus combined with Parks Victoria this month to undertake a huge clean up along some of Victoria’s most remote coastline. Together we covered more than 15km of wild ocean beaches and rock shelves to the immediate east and west of Cape Otway. The stretch to the east of the lighthouse – from Parker River to Crayfish Bay, was relatively clean, as it is less open to the swell, but to the west, Station Beach and Aire River mouth yielded a huge amount of debris. Most notable was the amount of synthetic rope caught on the rocks to the west of the river mouth and the large plastic spools and buoys that were lodged high on the rock shelves. We also collected more than 2500 pieces of small plastic, none bigger than a 20 cent piece. The clean up was an epic effort by the students, conducted over two days. We intend to return to this area every couple of months to keep on top of the rubbish washed up onto these otherwise pristine beaches.