What do you get when you cross 40 volunteers, 75 miles of beach and the most magical island in the world …. Drop Bear Adventure’s first annual beach clean-up!

OCEANS SWAMPED WITH PLASTICS

Now, don’t get us wrong, we would LOVE it if we didn’t have to clean up the beach but unfortunately, in this day and age, beach cleaning is a ‘thing’ that needs to be done. Our oceans are swamped with plastic, our landfill is overflowing with waste and yet we continue to produce increasing amounts of unrecyclable, indecomposable items that are filling up our planet.

Yet…one beautiful thing we can take out of beach cleaning events is the fact that it brings a bunch of like-minded individuals together that all have the same passion and love for the planet.

ORGANISING OUR FIRST BEACH CLEAN-UP EVENT

Mumma Bear & the team have been super excited organising our first beach clean-up event and it couldn’t have been a better weekend. From Drop Bear crew, independent travel agents, old friends and new friends; a total of 40 volunteers joined us to clean up 75 miles of beach on K’gari – Fraser Island.

STAGGERING AMOUNT OF WASTE

In just over 4 hours we collected a staggering 408KG of waste which included over 2480 plastic bags, 500 plastic food packaging, 2122 bits of hard plastic, over 10,000 bits of microplastics, 109 beer bottles, 84 aluminium cans and just over 750 plastic bottle lids. As well as this there was plenty of washed up thongs, plastic bottles, lighters, straws, fishing remnants and rope. The list goes on & on!

THE ANSWER IS NOT RECYCLING, IT’S REDUCING

Anyone that has been to a beach clean event can admit how eye opening it really is when you see how much rubbish is out there polluting our land and sea. It’s daunting and upsetting to see, however we can make a difference. The answer is not recycling, it’s reducing. It’s making a lifestyle change and refusing to buy items in plastic at the supermarket. It’s about buying that keep cup so you can continue to have your morning coffee. It’s about having access to lifelong bags so you don’t have to make the decision of accepting a plastic carrier bag versus awkwardly carrying your items out of the shop! It’s small changes that make a big difference in the end and we can, and we will all make a difference to protect our planet for years to come.

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for our first beach clean-up event. We can’t express how much we appreciate you taking the time out of your busy work/life schedules to come help us keep K’gari clean.

Keep ya eyes peeled for our next Beach Clean-up events coming in 2019!!

Full testimonials below –