Council is not willing to learn

For some 21 years I removed litter from Umina and Ocean Beaches, removing two to three tonnes of litter yearly which included 20 to 25 syringes per year.

More than 70 per cent of these occurred in the drain overflow areas, after rain.

In fact, there was a one in three chance of finding syringes after four millimetres of rain in the drain catchment.

The most of remainder of the syringes were found on the tide line.

The council claimed that it machined the beaches to remove this hazard but I helped perform an experiment in which 17 needless syringes were placed in the sand prior to machining and we retrieved 15 of them after the beach had been machined for 20 minutes.

After an athlete competing on Elwood beach on Port Philip Bay suffered a needle stick despite the beach having been raked, the Victorian Government established a taskforce to investigate the problem.

They concluded that no cleaning practice could guarantee removal of all syringes.

They identified rain as a major factor and stormwater drains as major sites and stated that stormwater drain areas should be cleaned daily after rain events.

Gosford Council should be aware of this as they have been advised regarding the Victorian Beach Cleaning Best Practice.

However, they do not follow the guidelines.

The worst form of ignorance is not willing to learn.

John Harrison, Umina Beach