Witches hats, chairs, shoes, kettles and skateboards were among the 2.65 tonnes of rubbish collected during the Hillarys Boat Harbour clean up last weekend.

NARC Dive Club chairman Chris Dodd said 85 people attended the shore clean-up on the Saturday and 65 divers were at the underwater event on Sunday.

“We collected many things – from an iPad to a love note message in a bottle. The total amount of items was 18,943 with cigarette butts being our biggest number hitting 9762,” he said. “A couple of the things that took me by surprise were the 150m of razor wire, the lead acid batteries and one whole Zodiac Tender (inflatable boat).”

He said the event was different from last year’s with the shore and dive clean-up, which meant more smaller items were collected, giving a larger number of pieces found but one tonne less in weight.

“It was important to cover these areas this year to finish the areas we didn’t get to last year and we can now say that it has to be the cleanest marina in Perth above and below the water,” Mr Dodd said.

Making up more than 85 per cent of the rubbish collected were cans (1080), cigarette butts (9,762), glass bottles (830), paper (1334), plastic bottles (617) and plastic pieces (2770).

Friday 4th May saw students from grades 5, 6 and 7 join in Waste Day Activities at the Port Douglas State School. Organised by Earth Smart Science, Reef Guardian Schools, Tangaroa Blue Foundation and Science Spark students learned ways of minimising and managing waste at home, school and in the environment over a fun day of activities both at their school and down at local 4 Mile Beach.

During the day groups of students covered 900m of 4 Mile Beach and Park removing more than 1100 pieces of debris weighing 40kg. The most common items found were 260 bits of hard broken plastic, 128 plastic film remnants, 122 cigarette butts, 62 pieces of broken glass and 59 glass beer bottles.

A couple of heavy items found included a paver, metal pole and chain, metal sign and pieces of processed timber!

Students collected data as they removed the debris, adding to the ongoing information being collected about what and how much debris is impacting 4 Mile Beach through the Australian Marine Debris Initiative.

A big thank you to all the students and teachers involved in the day - a great effort!

April 28th saw a hive of activity early at the Port Douglas Coast Guard as volunteers started arriving for the Low Isles & Woody Island Clean Up event. An amazing show of community spirit meant that volunteers had reserved all seats available with another 10 volunteers on a standby list ready to take any spots that became available!

With the weather gods being kind and only 15kts of wind blowing a flotilla of boats made their way out to Low Isles and then smaller vessels ferried everyone over to Woody Island.

Woody Island is a mangrove covered shingle cay next to Low Isles and is closed between September and March as a large population of pied imperial (or Torres Strait) pigeons live and breed on the island. This was the first time since the pigeons had departed that we had been on the island, so everyone was very interested to see what we would find.

The windward side of the island is where the south-east winds normally throw up a lot of debris and that is where the volunteer effort was focused, and as the bags started to come back it was clear this was going to be another monster haul!!

So here are the results from the day!

49 volunteers & 8 boat crew members involved - thank you to the Port Douglas Coast Guard, Windswell, Sailaway, Wavedancer, Reefsprinter, OutnAbout, Sam Dibella and Guy Ely for their boats and crew!

637kg of marine debris was removed – A huge effort by all volunteers! A special mention goes to Tara Wheatland, Chris Witty and Sam Dibella who hauled over 400kg of debris stuck up in the mangroves – awesome effort!

70 sausages enjoyed – thank you to Malone’s Butchery for their donation of yummy sausages!

Thanks to Andrew Solomon and members of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji community who came out and assisted with the clean up. Andrew Solomon said about the day:  "As part of our responsibility as custodians of this land to take care of our Bubu (country), members of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji participated in the Woody Island Clean Up. Working together with other volunteers helps to strengthen our relationship between the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people and the wider community and we look forward to having more of our mob attending future beach clean up events."

And thanks also goes to Low Isles Caretakers Jenni & Wayne Fox, Low Isles Preservation Society, Envirofund, Cairns Regional Council and all the volunteers – what a day!

The Woody Island Clean Up and ongoing monitoring clean ups on Lows Isles are part of the Australian Marine Debris Initiative which is an on-ground program that removes marine debris from around the Australian coastline and collects data on what is found. This data is submitted into the Australian Marine Debris Database which is used to identify the sources and solutions to marine debris in an effort to improve the health of both the marine and coastal environments.

The next clean up event will be held in Cooktown on Sunday May 27th, for more information please email amdi@tangaroablue.org or call 0410 166 684 or web www.tangaroablue.org

Litter was collected from the Overland Track and East Coast beaches, and fauna were surveyed by participants in guided tours as part of the Green Guardians voluntourism program during the past summer.

The litter collection survey took place on the popular Overland Track in Cradle Mountain – Lake St Clair National Park and on the Hazards Beach track at Freycinet National Park, Tasmania; the study and collection of marine debris occurred in the Bay of Fires Conservation Area; and the fauna survey was carried out along the Franklin River in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. The participating commercial operators who conducted the tours associated with these projects welcomed the idea and were keen to help implement the project. Cradle Mountain Huts Walk guides and participants cleared rubbish from the Overland Track during the summer, collecting 268 pieces of rubbish, including 98 confectionary wrappers/chip packets, 58 metal items, and numerous other bits and pieces. Tasmanian Wilderness Experiences guides and participants cleared rubbish from Freycinet’s Hazards Beach track, logging 120 items, 86 of which were tissues. Water by Nature operate rafting tours down the Franklin River and were able to contribute a useful amount of data towards the fauna survey, which aims to identify which animal species are most likely to be seen along the river.  One particular bird which is being sought after in this area is the Tasmanian azure kingfisher, which since 2001 has been listed as an endangered species. Unfortunately, no sightings of this beautiful bird were made as part of the Green Guardians program on the Franklin River.

Several trips to the Bay of Fires Deep Creek area saw guides and participants on the Bay of Fires Lodge Walk collect 264 individual pieces of marine debris, much of it plastic and from shoreline and recreational marine activities.