The Cleanup 2018 Day 7 : 09-03-2018

Nye Bay, South Giblin River

Today we stayed within Nye Bay but headed to the south side of the Giblin River.

Following the rocky shoreline through a series small coves and jagged headlands of schist (a rock type), we collected the usual assortment of plastic bottles, fishing buoys, bait savers, and random plastic pieces, but as we rounded low scrubby headland into one of the larger coves along this stretch of coast we were stopped dead in our tracks.

Shocked by the amount of small plastics in amongst the small pebbles and gravelly sand our entire group spread out and sat down to add to our collections. So prolific was the plastic that some Team Clean members stayed sitting in the same position for over an hour and were still filling their bags with micro plastics.

It was a big day! And at the day's end we had a big count, accumulating a grand total of 38,400 pieces of plastic.

Whilst it's been hard work cleaning up these beautiful West Coast beaches, our team has remained positive by making up ways to have fun whilst spending long hours collecting, counting and cataloging plastics. Today we focused on the different small toys we found, which included; Cat Woman, a jet airplane, toy sword, car wheels, a car, pieces of Lego, a paratrooper, and a small dog figurine.

It's also been an amazing opportunity to spot birds and observe wildlife. Today we encountered Green Rosellas, Cormorants, a Buller's albatross, and Fairy Prion's. We were also entertained by seals swimming in the protected coves durning the day and dolphins riding the swells on sunset.