Building debris a problem for birds

While it looks like regular maintenance in the Coast waterways by environmental groups such as Ocean Crusaders and Night Eyes Water Care and Land Group are showing good signs, there is another issue at hand that’s getting worse

CONSTRUCTION CLEAN-UP: The team from Ocean Crusaders and their helpers found 65kg of rubbish, mostly construction debris, while cleaning up at the Bells Creek boat ramp last weekend. Photo: Gail Podberscek

RATHER than just get in a flap about rubbish at Bells Creek, a group of community volunteers has done something practical to help their local, feathered friends.

Thirty-two people collected a total of 65kg of rubbish at the Bells Creek boat ramp earlier this month as part of Ocean Crusaders and Chimu Adventures’ clean-up collaboration.

It was all in a bid to prevent the number of pelicans and black swans in the area from dwindling.

Ocean Crusaders founder Ian Thomson said the amount was down on their usual collection.

“Every time we went into Bells Creek in the past we’d collect well over 100kg … and the fact we’ve only found 65kg is fantastic,” he said.

“It shows that what we’re doing on the Sunshine Coast is actually working to reduce the amount of rubbish by doing consistent clean-ups between ourselves and Night Eyes (Water Care and Land Group).”

Despite the good signs after regular maintenance of the waterways, Mr Thomson said construction waste and the humble thong were worrying trends in the rubbish collected.

“In the rubbish that we picked up over the last four or five months, almost all of it coming from that area has been construction debris, in comparison to what we used to find,” he said.

Mr Thomson said it was an issue that deserved to be properly addressed, as the pelicans and black swans deserved a chance to “swim around their environment without having the risk of suffering from plastic suffocation or ingestion”.

“The council has had issues with the waste hitting waterways and we’ve pulled out quite a bit of that ourselves,” Mr Thomson said.

“We always find new issues when there are big developments like this. As much as they try to do their best, there’s always overflows.

“If the wind picks up, polystyrene and sheets of black plastic fly out of their bins.”

Ocean Crusaders cope with the tides day in and day out to find the perfect time to clear such waste.

Mr Thomson said all he could say was that construction workers needed “to do a better job”.

“We clean for the wildlife, ensuring that your turtles, black swans, pelicans and dugongs are safe,” he said.

“Whenever there is construction near a waterway they need to do a far better job of containing their rubbish, whether that be covering their skip bins or just cleaning up at the site at the end of the day.

“Because no matter where we go, there’s always construction waste.

“The other things, we seem to have gotten on top of, but there would’ve been probably 12 left thongs for the day, but that’s people on the beach leaving their thongs behind.

“We know thongs are pretty cheap, but they’re pretty expensive to our wildlife.”

Originally published as Building debris a problem for birds