Beach Clean-ups

Beach clean-ups around our region

Some of the plastics found on Burnie Main Beach. Above (top): Potatoes at Camdale Beach. Above (below): Volunteers at Buttons Beach, Ulverstone.

Throughout April and May, Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) ran 15 community clean-ups on Tasmania’s north coast between Devonport and Somerset.

37 wonderful volunteers and some CCA staff helped them to collect over 240 kgs of rubbish from our stunning beaches, preventing it from reaching the ocean and Great Southern Reef beyond. They picked up thousands of pieces of rubbish, and found that 79% is plastic. Nearly 50% of the plastics pieces are cigarette butts. There is some good news, of the beaches surveyed for microplastics, they found them present on only one – Burnie Main Beach. The strangest find had to be the hundreds of potatoes washed up on Camdale Beach.

CVA would like to thank everyone who came out to help, rain or shine. They couldn’t have done it without you!