Melbourne beaches trashed by visitors leaving hundreds of kilograms of rubbish behind
FILTHY visitors are trashing beaches across Melbourne, leaving them strewn with hundreds of kilograms of rubbish including bottles, bags, butts, and sparklers — and some more unusual items.
South East
Don't miss out on the headlines from South East . Followed categories will be added to My News.
CARELESS tourists are trashing Peninsula beaches, leaving bottles, bags, butts and even broken furniture strewn across the sand.
About 50 members of Safety Beach/Dromana Beach Patrol and volunteers from the Safety Beach Foreshore cleaned up “a hell of a mess” on January 7.
Rubbish complaints overflow as city’s treasure is trashed with litter
Police fear St Kilda beach brawl in wake of Christmas Day drunken chaos
“In total we collected over 140kg of rubbish, not including five broken marquees, a lawnmower and two large wooden swivel chairs,” group member Gary Robertson said.
“And to add to the mess, some people thought it would be a good idea to remove rocks from the retainer wall and use them to possibly hold down their marquees or secure their boat/jet ski.”
Further south more than 270 volunteers took part in a Seaside Scavenge at Rye.
The event — also held on January 7 as part of the Sea Shepherd Marine Debris Campaign — resulted in the collection of 9800 cigarette butts, 965 bottles, 835 plastic bags, 689 plastic straws, cups and cutlery, 610 aluminium cans and 3.5kg of used sparklers.
Inspired by the efforts at neighbouring beaches, Kelly Winsor held her own clean up between Rosebud pier and McCrae Lighthouse.
In two hours she filled a garbage bag with about 100 cigarette butts, alcohol cans and bottles, food wrappers, coffee cups, ice cream containers, nappies and a condom.
A keen kayaker, Ms Winsor said she usually collected at least one bag of rubbish from the water every time she went out.
“People really need to be more responsible and take their rubbish with them,” she said.
“I also think it would help if we could have more bins along the foreshore, especially around the campsites and have them emptied more regularly.”
In Mordialloc, lazy visitors have left about 136kg of rubbish strewn on the sand so far this summer.
And clean-up volunteers say their biggest hauls in December came from Mentone, where 44kgs of litter was dumped and Aspendale which had 35kgs.
The volunteers, who spend an hour a month collecting the litter, say the problem gets worse every year.
“Every summer the beach rubbish increases massively,” Chelsea Beach patrol zone manager Lucy Bonham said.
She said people were smoking and drinking at the beach and leaving a mess of empty containers, lids and cigarette butts.
In 2017 the group picked up more than 1100kg of rubbish from Edithvale, Chelsea and Bonbeach.
Cigarette butts and drink containers were among the most common items collected.
Ms Bonham said group members had also found used needles and car parts.
There are five beach patrols operating in Kingston including Parkdale, Mordialloc, Aspendale and Chelsea. Mordialloc’s December clean up was cancelled because of safety concerns about lightning, but the previous month the group picked up 43kg of abandoned rubbish.
Meanwhile, hard work by volunteers is starting to pay off with a significant drop in rubbish being left behind at Frankston beaches.
Frankston Beach Patrol has reported a decrease in overall litter this summer with members picking up 23.5kg of trash in December 2017 — less than a third of the waste collected for the same time in 2016 (73kg).
Co-founder of Beach Patrol Australia Ross Headifen said the network was growing in popularity with at least one person joining a local group every day.
“We’ve also got two new groups starting this year — Rosebud and Mt Eliza,” Mr Headifen said.
The Rosebud Beach Patrol was scheduled to hold its first clean up on Saturday and Mt Eliza was expected to begin in February.
He said the only “hole” in the coverage of Mornington Peninsula beaches was at Mornington and Mt Martha.
“It would be great to have a group in that area so if anyone was interested in starting one we’d love to hear from them,” he said.
Mr Headifen said one of the group’s main objectives was to collect data to support calls for a Container Deposit Scheme in Victoria.
“Bottles and cans are the most collected items by our volunteers,” Mr Headifen said.
“If Victoria reinstated its deposit scheme people would have an incentive to either take their drink containers with them or pick up discarded ones.”
Recording details about litter on beaches was also an important role, he said.
“Victoria really needs a central data base that anyone picking up rubbish can access,” Mr Headifen said.
“If we can track what is being picked up, where it is being collected and the volumes involved we can get an accurate picture and start looking at real solutions.”
To join a group or find out more go to beachpatrol.com.au
