The trails, shoreline and waters of Port Moody Inlet are a little cleaner this week, thanks to the efforts of volunteers who hauled out everything from cigarette butts to crab traps during the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup on Saturday.
"Junk piles up quite quickly after a summer," commented Bill Marshall, an organizer with the Beyond the Shoreline Cleanup in which divers collected garbage underneath the docks at Twin Islands and Belcarra Regional Park.
During a span of about 45 minutes, seven experienced, certified scuba divers, armed with mesh bags, dove under the docks and picked up fishing equipment, bottles and cans and several kayak paddles.
"How would you get home?" Marshall wondered, as he recounted the list of objects scooped up by the divers.
The total list included: eight crab traps that were snapped up by people hanging out at the pier that day, fishing poles, pop and beer cans, kitchen utensils, locks and fishing gear, plastic parts, a tire and a golf ball.
Beyond the Shoreline was organized by Burnaby and Coquitlam Power and Sail Squadrons and Dive and Sea in New Westminster provided gear for some of the divers.
Nearby, volunteers scoured the shoreline for garbage during a cleanup organized by the Port Moody Ecological Society, which runs the Noons Creek Hatchery.
Some 96 people, including children and Klahani residents, turned out for the event sponsored by FS Financial Strategies. The group covered a greater area than last year, according to organizers, but collected less junk.
However, the group collected double the number of cigarette butts - 1,200 in total - and these will be sent to Terracycle Canada for recycling. Also collected were 247 lbs of garbage. More stats will soon be posted soon on the organization's website.
The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is an annual event organized by the Vancouver Aquarium.
