Litter clean-up part of awareness project

A number of residents from the Killcare and Hardys Bay area have taken part in a Project Aware course held on the Central Coast.

The marine conservation program aimed to help address the problem of degradation of local rock platforms and coastal environments.

The focus of this year's course was marine debris and its effect on oceans.

The threats to marine life from litter in the oceans range from the death of millions of young sea birds from eating small man-made items fed to them by their foraging parents, to the death of huge whales caused by digestive systems blocked by ingesting plastic bags while feeding on plankton.

As part of the course, participants each took part in a marine debris survey.

The survey data is to be collated by Tangaroa Blue Foundation for use in a national database to help control marine debris problems.

A Hardys Bay clean-up and marine debris survey was done over four days, over a 500 metre section of the shoreline along Araluen Dr and Hardys Bay Pde.

The litter found was mainly plastic.

There were over 80 plastic bags such as shopping bags, many bait bags and plastic bag remnants collected.

The most common items, however, were hundreds of pieces of plastic food packaging and hundreds of small pieces of hard plastic.

Polystyrene food packaging and foam pieces were also common.

Newsletter, 24 Apr 2013

David Legge, Killcare Wagstaffe Trust