Friday, March 19, 2021

Day 6




The day started early with the boats departing Nye Bay before sunrise. After a glassy steam south the team assembled at Towterer Beach.
We were greeted to a playful 2-3ft beach break, stoke levels high, the crowd was soon spread over the beach. Making the most of the early morning; warm calm conditions - very rare in these parts.
We shuttled in to the southern end of Towterer, starting the day with a set of goals to ensure we weren't deterred by the size of the beach and plastics strewn through the dunes and tide lines.
In total we picked up debris for 7 hours but in reality we had 18 people immersed in a 50 metre section of micro plastics. The scale is difficult to describe. 18 people sitting in situ collecting pieces mostly ranging from 2.5mm to 10mm. This is the scale of rubbish that gets overlooked by most rubbish collectors. Once seen and noted, never forgotten! Nurdles were thick and numerous. Veteran marine debris collector Ula commented she'd never seen so many nurdles. If we didn't know what a nurdle was before today, now we do!
An intense section of beach also yielded many larger items, buoys, fish bins, a mass of ropes that took a combined effort to excavate, squid bulbs, fenders, large pieces of fishing nets, and a tangled mass of cargo strapping.
Highest days count for our trip so far with 26,641 found and foraged. Even though it was our highest count so far, sadly there are many more micro plastics that will be there to greet us next time.

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