Thinking globally, acting locally

Thank you to everyone that came along to our beach rubbish collection on Sunday October 15 as part of the Tangaroa Blue 2017 WA Beach Clean Up and in conjunction with the Town of Cottesloe. All the data we collected will be added to the Australian Marine Debris Database and we’re happy to report that this year we had significantly less rubbish than last year. Although from our observations there was still a lot of micro plastics and cigarette butts on the beach.

It’s always upsetting to pick up discarded fishing line and – as you can see in the photo below (by Mark Binns) taken at Cottesloe reef, fishing hooks and line are lethal to bird life and marine life. PLEASE take all your rubbish with you and firmly wind up discarded line and place it carefully in a covered rubbish bin.

Small and totally harmless Port Jackson sharks breed off Cottesloe reef and this one was very lucky that Mark was snorkelling and was able to cut it free from the lethal entanglement. In the composite photo above you can also see a baby dead Port Jackson and a shark egg which we found while we were rubbish collecting.

Big thanks to Helen Kanakis (CCA volunteer) and Melissa Rachan (Town of Cottesloe’s Sustainability Officer) for co-ordinating the successful event on South Cottesloe’s beach front.