Southern Cross Credit Union and their community partners came together on Sunday 5th March 2023, to host one major impact event for the Kingscliff community, and the results were incredible.
The community came out in numbers, with over 200 volunteers, including SCCU staff, families, nippers and locals. In just under two hours, 23.7 kilos of rubbish was removed from the Kingscliff foreshore, which was a substantial amount considering most of the items were small. These items included hundreds of pieces of small plastics, cigarette butts, sushi soy sauce fish containers, bottles, hundreds of lids, fishing gear, cans and more.
“It was fantastic to see the local community turn out to join us at this event. The results were huge in such a short period of time, and whilst it is great to see this amount of rubbish removed before it could wind up in the digestive systems of our wildlife, it was sad to see so much collected on a beach that appears to be clean on a surface level. We need to continue raising awareness around the importance of healthy waterways and reducing rubbish on our beaches, creeks and oceans for our future.” SCCU Community and Sponsorship Specialist, Cassie Nicole shares.
”Caring for our environment is up to all of us, and through community effort and understanding, we can help reduce the negative impact. Events such as Clean Up Australia Day give us the opportunity to come together and raise awareness, but our actions daily will create change.”
Southern Cross Credit Union, Positive Change For Marine Life, Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital, Australian Seabird and Turtle Rescue, and Cudgen Headland Surf Life Saving Club are extremely proud of the results, and believe it is important to continue to raise awareness of the damage caused by rubbish left in our environment.
To read the full report on both the Kingscliff and Byron Bay Clean Up Events, including a breakdown of the data, head to https://pcfml.org.au/blog/cuad2023
