Every bit counts: Volunteers clean up shoreline trash in Stanley Park

Volunteers and staff members gathered along Vancouver’s Stanley Park Seawall Saturday to pick up litter as part of International Coastal Cleanup Day.

The effort was spearheaded by Ocean Wise, the Vancouver Aquarium and the Stanley Park Ecology Society, who say they are on a mission to restore and protect the ocean.

“It’s important for us to get this litter off the shoreline, especially all that plastic we’re seeing because it is detrimental to the health of the ecosystem, the animals, the life that’s there, as well as—I don’t think any of us want to look at it,” said Daphne Austin, education manager with Ocean Wise.

“By doing that we’re preventing that plastic and litter from entering our waterways, entering the ocean and therefore being harder to pick up and remove from the environment.”

The crew of coastal cleaners find all manner of trash such as food wrappers, bottle caps and bits of plastic, but Austin told CTV News the most commonly discarded litter in the area is cigarette butts.

Danika Strecko, senior education manager with the Vancouver Aquarium estimated 30 to 40 kilograms of litter was removed from the shoreline during the cleanup.

After the garbage is collected and weighed, it’s tallied to go into a data set which can be sent to policymakers and manufacturers.

“How we make that big impact is knowing what we’re finding on our shorelines…and then work with the folks that are maybe producing some of those products and helping shut off the tap and keeping that litter off our shorelines in the long term,” she said.

Austin said everyone can do their part to help the ocean, from something small like opting not to use single-use plastics to joining or even organizing a shoreline cleanup.

Shoreline cleanups take place regularly across Canada and in the U.S., any anyone can sign up at ocean.org