By Maria Doty

Nanaimo-based society helping clean BC c

Nanaimo-based society helping clean BC coasts and track trash

Sep 14, 2019 | 7:35 PM

NANAIMO – Everyone knows plastics in the ocean is bad and no one likes to see it wash up onshore.

After seeing so much marine debris and garbage land on the west coast of Vancouver Island, a group of primarily Nanaimo-based activists are now working to track just how much trash arrives on the Island and why it accumulates in those areas.

Renny Talbot, a fisheries protection biologist who’s also heavily involved in the Rugged Coast Research Society, told NanaimoNewsNOW he and others could spend only so much time on the west coast before they had to act.

“We realized there was a gap in information out there on the mapping side of where accumulation areas for marine debris actually are on the west coast.”

He and others are now hard at work mapping where trash arrives and how much.

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“We’re hoping our maps will inform other groups and ourselves. We can then work with other groups and pool our resources to focus on these priority areas, instead of just doing smaller cleanups at different areas that have less accumulation.”

Since starting in 2017, Talbot estimated they’ve mapped roughly one-fifth of the trash accumulation areas on Vancouver Island’s west coast.

The hope is to eventually have a comprehensive map of the entire B.C. coastline showing hot spots and problem areas of garbage.

“This will help us understand the marine debris in our ocean and how much is in our coast. It will also help us understand areas that need further attention and need to be cleaned up annually, or every five and 10 years.”

Talbot said funding for such efforts is relatively scarce. He encouraged more funding from both provincial and federal levels of governments to help put more boots on the ground to tackle the issue.”

“I think there needs to be a lot more attention given to this issue. We’re still finding high concentrations of plastics nearly everywhere we look.”

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit