Local residents at Rocky Point in Far North Queensland regularly walk the 2km section of beach from the northern boat ramp, and never leave without removing bags of litter and items dumped by drivers on the highway, or left from visitors to the boat ramp.

Port Douglas-based marine health initiative Tangaroa Blue put out the call for clean-up help, and on November 30, volunteers joined local residents in removing more than 228kg of litter and hard rubbish illegally dumped on the beach.

The haul included metal furniture, a plastic sky light, tent poles, a metal BBQ, tyres, and a urine sample bottle (complete with Cairns Base Hospital label!) - all items you wouldn't expect or want to find on a tropical beach on the Great Barrier Reef's doorstep.

The clean-up team also collected:

• 219 aluminium cans (mostly beer cans)
• 67 glass beer stubbies
• 132 plastic drink bottles
• 37 shopping bags
• 109 food packaging
• 437m of fishing line (much of it in the area around the boat ramp)

Though numerous personalised items were also found, from tax receipts to boxes, local authorities don't seem interested in following these up.

Locals know that people illegally dump items from the highway onto the beach, and campers and boat ramp users leave their rubbish instead of doing the right thing and taking it with them.

Requests to council have gone unanswered. Infrastructure is needed in the area, the sole bin in the Rocky Point car park often overflowing, and insufficient for the high use of this amenity. Additional bins provided by Council are often stolen, so a permanent structure is desperately required.

Moreover, a complete lack of compliance and enforcement means that it is left to volunteers to try and deal with this problem - and they are getting sick of it.

If you see someone illegally dumping or littering, you can do something about it.

The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP) has an online littering and dumping reporting form at https://report-littering-dumping.ehp.qld.gov.au/ and they can issue an infringement notice to the registered owner of a vehicle/vessel based on your report.

Thank you to all the volunteers that came along and helped. We also acknowledge that the Cairns Regional Council allowed us to dispose of the debris for free at the Killaloe Transfer Station.