Mannequin, furniture, traffic post pulled from river as part of cleaning blitz
Giant river vacuums have been used to suck up microplastics during a huge volunteer operation to clean up a major Melbourne river, with massive piles of dumped rubbish — including a mannequin — being removed.
North West
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A mannequin, barnacle-covered chair and traffic sign were among six tonnes of rubbish pulled from the Maribyrnong River last year.
The mammoth clean up effort took place across two eight-day stretches on March 3 and November 24 last year to freshen up the river.
The river blitzes involved 220 diligent volunteers who helped man giant river vacuums and picked up litter along the foreshore in an effort to clean up our waterways.
Along with the wacky finds, 1200 cigarette butts, 1032 plastic bags and 1004 pieces of foam insulation and packaging were pulled from the river.
The giant project also included five blitzes at the Yarra River, where over 30 tonnes of rubbish was collected.
Yarra Riverkeeper Association education manager Nicole Kowalczyk, who participated in all seven river blitzes, said the project came about after her organisation, Melbourne Water and Cleanwater Group decided they had to do something about the incredible amount of rubbish making its way into the rivers.
“We noticed a huge amount of litter trapped in the vegetation, particularly the reed beads and most of this litter was microplastics like polystyrene beads and tiny plastic fragments,” she said.
Microplastics are small pieces of rubbish less than 5mm in diameter.
About 256 million microplastics enter the Maribyrnong River each year.
The groups collaborated to use a giant vacuum system attached to a boat to suck up the small microplastics that would have otherwise had to be picked up piece by piece.
“We were able to get to these areas that potentially have never been cleaned ever,” Mrs Kowalczyk said.
She said she team was very surprised at the amount of rubbish they found.
“The other interesting thing is we thought that with each blitz it’d take years for the same amount of litter to accumulate, but we’ve found we had to go back to the same locations because there’s a constant stream of litter,” Mrs Kowalczyk said.
Much of the litter entering Port Phillip Bay comes from the Yarra and Maribyrnong Rivers, making its way through storm water drain networks, illegal dumping and recreational activities along the river banks where people leave their rubbish.
Mrs Kowalczyk said many people had an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality when it came to littering.
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“People are doing it on purpose, but there’s also accidental littering – it always comes down to people,” she said.
The ecologist said the answer to the pollution problem was more awareness, wiser consumer choices, more information and increased recycling facilities that were efficiently maintained.
“It’s overwhelming, but everybody can play their part – it’s a human problem, which means we can fix it,” Mrs Kowalczyk said.