60kg of rubbish on beach

Volunteers collected more than 60kg of rubbish during a beach clean-up at Nanarup on Saturday.

Around 20 volunteers helped remove the debris from the area in the clean-up run by Albany Great Southern Sea Shepherd.

The volunteers covered the beach, picnic area and inlet, collecting bags of rubbish dumped by visitors.

Sea Shepherd member Jamie Kiddle said overall, volunteers collected close to 60kg of rubbish.

“All up we got about two of our bags full of rubbish, plus a plastic drum,” he said. “The bags would weigh about 30kg, with the bulk being beer bottles and plastic water bottles.

“We recycled what was possible — which came to one full bag of glass, aluminium and recyclable plastic —and the barbecue area was surprisingly cleaner than last time we did a beach clean here, but there was still a lot of bread bag clips and cigarette butts in this area — all only metres from two bins.”

Mr Kiddle said the perfect weather drew a large crowd to the beach.

“It meant there were a lot of people using the beach, so we were happy to be out and about showing what we do and encouraging people to do the right thing,” he said.

“We find the vast majority of people do the right thing and take their rubbish with them — quite a few also taking what they find, too — but unfortunately it seems the minority that just don’t seem to care really make up for it by littering at an unreasonable rate.”

Mr Kiddle hopes to hold regular beach clean-ups now the weather is getting better. “We try and do one a month and choose different locations around Albany and Denmark — it’s all part of Sea Shepherd Australia’s Marine Debris Campaign to show how bad the marine debris situation is and educate on how to minimise single-use plastics use in our daily lives,” he said.

The next clean-up is planned for Anvil Beach.