CARING for the unique environment of Port Stephens is something which our community does well.The volunteer clean-up of the Mangroves at Marsh Road in Bob’s Farm is just one example of people turning out to do the right thing.
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Unfortunately this effort would not be needed of people didn’t dump rubbish illegally into our fragile environment in the first place.
The picturesque Marsh Road is lined with mangrove habitat and has sustained a fair amount of illegal dumping and littering for many years.
After a huge turnout in 2018 they pulled out 18,000 pieces of rubbish in 5 hours, yet they failed to finish the area of road that was closed off.
The Port Stephens conservation organisation Sea Shelter working closely with Irukandji Shark & Ray Encounters conducted its second clean up the mangroves in Bobs Farm.
Removing illegally dumped and tossed waste.
This year cleaning the same area and pulling out a further 7359 pieces in 49 bags the team of volunteers and Sea Shelter organisers felt that they finally had accomplished something significant.
The waste was sorted and there were many interesting finds.
Lia Pereira co-founder of Sea Shelter told News Of The Area, “Our volunteers on the day were fantastic.
“The rubbish removed from the mangroves included 39 strawberry style plastic containers, five wallets possibly stolen, 1273 advertising magazines in one large pile still rolled up, this was clearly deliberately dumped by somebody not wanting to deliver them,
“There were also 3151 pieces of plastic, 681 alcohol bottles, 277 cigarette butts, 404 pieces of car parts and 7 pieces of asbestos,” she said.
The team hopes to see a reduction in the amount of rubbish in the mangroves when they turn out to do it all again in 2020.
By Marian SAMPSON
