Once again we joined the team from Adventure Wellington to conduct a beach and underwater clean up at Oriental Beach – alongside the Tugboat.
With divers underwater, volunteers collecting rubbish off the beach and breakwater and others acting as surface support or helping with decrittering the marine debris – 16 people came down to the beach to help make a difference in our local environment.
The majority of underwater rubbish colllected was beer bottles and cans with divers filling their catch bags the first time in ~5mins. They also found a couple of glass windows – probably from the tugboat itself, a large plastic door?, pieces of carpet, rope, a door mat and 1 small car tyre.
Collectors along the beach and in the breakwater were colecting cigarette butts, pieces of string, polystyrene and food wrappers. These items really get caught up in the rocks and though the area may look clean there is lots of rubbish in the gaps with over a dozen rubbish bags filled.
All the marine debris was inspected for marine life such as small fish, crabs, chitons and sea stars which were collected and returned to the sea.
We would like to thank everyone for lending a hand and the public that came up to see what we were doing. Hopefully they will help spread the word and reduce the amount of rubbish that ends up in the sea in the first place!