by Heidi Taylor

Volunteers grabbed gloves and bags around Australia on Sunday to clean up their environment, and it was no different in Far North Queensland where volunteers from Tangaroa Blue, Poseidon Outer Reef Cruises and Wavelength Marine Charters hit the beach to celebrate Clean Up Australia Day.

Cow Bay was the first on the list, and volunteers were happy to find that the beach was relatively clean with only 210 bits of rubbish weighing 13kg being found. So with lots of energy left, we headed round to the next bay at Cape Kimberley where previous clean ups have always yielded a huge haul of rubbish.

Two hours later, over 2920 items of debris had been collected weighing 149kg! This included 1104 pieces of broken hard plastic, 834 pieces of polystyrene foam (some of which were identified as foam from the Bureau of Meteorology's weather balloons), 348 lids, 89 shoes and 53 cigarette lighters.

The most unusual items were the membrane from a desalination unit, a Remington bullet holder, a spirit nip measure, a kid's bike, two animal syringes and a container full of horse vitamin paste.

During the event a little bit of healthy competition was created with vouchers to The Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat's Breakfast with the Birds up for grabs for the volunteer who found the most unusual item and for the volunteer who could guess the total amount of kilograms collected.

Congratulations to Erin Smart & Tanya Galvin who will be heading for a scrumptious breakfast!

Thanks to all the volunteers for their help, many hands make light work!!