The East Coast Spring Clean 2017 team recently visited Kiama’s Surf Beach to pass on an environmental message.
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Behind the initiative is Adelaide’s Malcolm Doyle, who is out to clean 60 beaches in 37 days, ending in Port Douglas.
Alongside Bella Liang, the pair are cleaning two beaches everyday on their self-funded trip.
“The basis of this whole trip was to get the community working together,” Mr Doyle said.
Once we’ve left the beach, it is ultimately up to the people who were there to continue the work.
- Malcolm Doyle
Doyle is using his annual leave from work to not only clean East Coast beaches, but also change people’s mindsets when it comes to waste and landfill.
With no widespread plastic bag ban or container deposits in NSW, Doyle estimated plastics, aluminium and glass bottles made up 90 per cent of what they’ve found.
“Not having a container deposit scheme is the biggest difference,” he said.
“Obviously you’ve got that coming shortly in the next couple of weeks, but we’ve had that for 30 plus years in SA. We’ve grown up knowing no different – you collect bottles and you get money for them and everybody does it.
“The problem will be getting the average 20-year-old who goes to the beach with a box of beer to bring those empty bottles back off the beach, put them in their car, then go to the supermarket to put them in the machine, all for $2.
“It’s habitual for us to do it, but I think it will take five or 10 years before you notice a big difference here with the scheme.”
Mr Doyle said Surf Beach was not too bad compared to other beaches he had visited along the way.
“All the beaches have had the same issues, bottles are the biggest issue, at the playgrounds you get a lot of lolly-pop sticks and gum wrappers, but the scariest thing is the place we find the most cigarette butts, which is at playgrounds,” he said.
“Small town or big town they’re all the same. All in all it wasn’t too bad really, there was a lot of broken glass around the rocks, where people sit up there. which is really really bad because obviously surfers jump off those rocks, they’re barefoot and running through that broken glass. It’s crazy.”
Doyle and Liang were joined by a representative from Plastic Free Kiama at Surf Beach.
“They came down and put their flag up and we had about a dozen volunteers, a lot of the people who came down it was their first time, so they were engaged and enjoyed it. They felt a sense of pride for cleaning up their local beach,” Mr Doyle said.
“Once we’ve left the beach, it is ultimately up to the people who were there to continue the work.
“We want nation wide recognition for a lot of these smaller grassroots organisations, so people can look at simple ideas and adopt them in their own towns – to be honest, one beach clean is not going to solve anything, in a week’s time that rubbish will be back again.”
For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/eastcoastspringclean2017/
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