Gonzales beach is butt free after a quick tidy just in time for the best weather of summer so far.
The Greater Victoria Green Team picked up up 55 pounds of garbage in just 90 minutes.
A total 21 volunteers tackled trash at Gonzales Beach in the Green Team’s latest collaboration with the FUN Society.
“The kids had a lot of fun, they got really into it,” said Amanda Evans, program manager, Greater Victoria Green Team.
Garbage included 70 cans and bottles, thousands of pieces of foam, plastic, ropes and hundreds of cigarette butts and food wrappers last week.
“Even if it looks clean, once you get down to the sand and gravel and behind logs you can spend three hours on one beach,” Evans said. “It takes a lot of work to clean up our beaches. They’re impacted by garbage both from people leaving cigarette butts on the beach to plastic washed ashore.”
For this cleanup they downloaded forms from the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup website, which led to separating the mess and sending more into the recycling stream.
“It’s a great resource on how to organize a beach cleanup, what to look for and separating and recycling. We ended up collecting more recycling than garbage,” Evans said. “This year we’re going to be submitting that data to the Shoreline database. Anyone can join or create a clean-up if they’re interested.”
Learn more about online resources at shorelinecleanup.ca.
Visit greenteamscanada.ca/our-green-teams/greater-victoria-green-team/ or find them on Facebook to learn more about the local Green Team.
“It was a good beach for us, and we will be going back Aug. 17,” Evans said. Volunteers are welcome to meet at the bathroom near Crescent Street and Ross Road for a 10 a.m. start.