Australian Christian College Southlands help keep Middleton Beach clean with Keep Australia Beautiful

Students at Australian Christian College Southlands are helping clean up Middleton Beach as part of a rubbish collecting initiative run by Keep Australia Beautiful.

They are a part of the environmental group’s Adopt-a-Spot program, which asks individuals, community groups, businesses or schools to “adopt” a local site and commit to volunteering to keep it free of litter.

The primary school students “adopted” a stretch of Middleton Beach in 2020 and have since become adept at spotting tiny micro-plastic fragments along the shore, which pose a threat to marine life.

Year 6 student Malachi Bresanello and his class noticed the amount of plastic on the beach increasing.

“There’s more every time we go, there is fishing line and bits of plastic ropes,” he said.

“One day we went and got half a bucket of rubbish and two days later the Year 4 class got 25 bits more from the same spot.”

Principal David Ramsay said the school provided students with a strong foundation that enabled them to make positive contributions to the local community.

The school’s involvement in keeping their piece of Middleton Beach litter-free is part of a wider sustainability program which includes working on weed eradication, recycling and being a founding partner of a local community garden.