Surfriders' 40kg clean up

Despite the pumping surf, Margaret River Surfrider members took to the beach to fill bin bags last weekend.

About 30 members and children gathered at Surfers Point to collect 40kg of litter co-ordinator Tracey Muir said would otherwise have blown into the ocean.

The rubbish included 43 aluminium cans, 3kg of glass, dozens of tins, metal bottle caps, a dozen plastic bottles and more than a hundred food wrappers.

Surfrider’s Laura Bailey said plastic bags, plastic food wrappers and cigarette butts were major offenders, along with fishing gear and discarded building equipment.

Ms Bailey said the day was also designed to highlight the importance of recycling as the group pushes for a 10-cent container deposit fee scheme.

“Recycling is an easy and effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.

“For example, the amount of electricity saved by recycling a single aluminium can is enough to run the average television for three hours.”

She said Surfrider believed the container deposit scheme would be a real incentive for more people to recycle and would make a huge difference to the amount of litter on our beaches.

“Recent news polls show over 85 per cent of Western Australians support the scheme, so we hope that all the political parties listen to this in the lead up to our State election.”