Massive clean-up of Vancouver Island shoreline complete
NANAIMO — Marine trash littered throughout Vancouver Island’s West Coast equaling the weight of seven adult killer whales has been picked up and barged away.
Forty tons of mainly styrofoam, fishing gear and plastics in 400 garbage bags on shorelines from just north of Port Renfrew to the northern tip have been plucked by a helicopter, according to the Living Oceans Society executive director Karen Wristen.
She says hopefully this effort is an eye-opener to people about all of the avoidable plastics going into the ocean.
“That’s one thing we hope to showcase as we begin unpacking all this stuff on the weekend and sorting it for disposal. There are going to be mountains of disposable plastics that are post-consumer waste,” says Wristen.