Clean-up of BP Beach planned

Beachcombing will be taken to new heights at BP Beach this week for the Keep Australia Beautiful campaign.

Anita Kelly of Dalyellup will lead a group of volunteers in the clean-up of BP Beach’s carpark, roadside and beach on Saturday.

The team will collect litter which has blown out of bins or been thrown from car windows as part of Keep Australia Beautiful Week.

Miss Kelly said 4000 items of fishing litter had been collected from the beach over the past three years and has been involved with clean-ups for in the South West for four years.

‘‘Any litter left on roadsides or park areas comes into the ocean either by stormwater drains or blows down from the road,’’ she said.

‘‘The amount of rubbish in the ocean here is beyond belief. It endangers all marine life through ingestion, entanglement and contamination.’’

Clean-up volunteer David Evans said protecting the ocean would protect the food chain.

‘‘All the rubbish in the ocean collects, fish eat the plastic and we then eat the fish,’’ he said. Murdoch University environment and sustainability student Samantha Eaton, who will also be cleaning the beach, said there are consequences to people’s littering actions.

‘‘It affects marine life, the aesthetics of the environment will go downhill,’’ she said.

‘‘We all like to go to the beach and it is nice to go to a beach without rubbish, almost every beach in the world has plastic on it now.’’

BP Beach Clean-up starts at 10am on Saturday.

To get involved email projectshorelines@gmail.com.