NON STOP LITTER ACTION
A BIG week in litter action on the Moonee Ponds Creek with a champion of our waterways, Ocean Crusaders.
A lot of litter!
Moonee Ponds Creek has the most litter of all of Melbourne's waterways and we sure got a feel for it this last week! A combination of the urbanised catchment and kilometres or concrete-lined channel makes it easy for litter to make its way directly to the Docklands, out to the Yarra and into Port Phillip Bay.
1.7 tonnes of litter was pulled from the creek and creek banks over 3 days, including 2 hard-core cleans and a paddle against plastic. A enormous effort considering much of the rubbish was plastic and polystyrene and weighs very little.
As a paddler on one of the days, it was disturbing to see how much litter had found a resting place among the reed beds! In many cases, the grasses and reeds have learnt to grow on top of or around all the rubbish including plastic bottles, cans of spray paint, polystyrene, balls galore and the odd shoe and back pack. Amazingly we heard the sounds of young birds nesting amongst the rubbish / reed beds.
Thanks to the many volunteers who helped across the 3 days and to the awesome Ocean Crusaders team for pulling it all together.
Say G'day to Geoff
We're delighted to have Geoff, the Automatic River Cleaner, in place on Moonee Ponds Creek for a 6 month trial. Thanks to Cr Rohan Leppert and the City of Melboourne for supporting Geoff's move from the Maribyrnong River to the Moonee Ponds Creek and Melbourne Water for emptying the skip over the 6 month trail period.
As Geoff's booms reach across the entire creek, we should be able to stop almost all rubbish making it's way downstream. We're super excited to see how Geoff goes and are excited about the possibility of having a Geoff permananetly at this site.
