Dredging by the Warrnambool breakwater deposits 'frightening' amount of litter

Beach Patrol's Colleen Hughson said volunteers had collected 78 kilograms of rubbish deposited by the works in the past three days.

"A lot of people have been concerned about it," she said.

"All this litter off the breakwater has sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor, it's been covered up with sand for many years and now it's all being dredged up.

"The dredging machine is actually ripping up the rubbish. We've collected over 600 shredded aluminium cans on the beach, it's quite a danger to beach walkers."

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She said there'd been some interesting finds.

"There's also just lots of plastic that's been down there for 40 years," she said.

"That includes margarine containers because recreational fishermen used to use them to store their bait. We've got one dating back to 1981, every brand imaginable has washed up.

"It's concerning that a lot of the cans - Victoria Bitter and Melbourne Bitter - would've been littered by recreational fishermen too.

"There's also lots of broken-up plastic drink bottles including a Coca Cola bottle with a competition on it valid to 1988.

"This stuff is really old, about 88 per cent of plastics sink to the ocean floor. Plastic lasts forever and this brings it to light at a local level.

"It's concerning how much litter is at the bottom of the ocean that we don't see. It's pretty frightening, really."

She said one find was particularly unusual.

"Another thing that's been washing up that we're collecting is coal from the old shipping days, that's how old some stuff is," Ms Hughson said.

"We've got all these lumps of coal washed up from a shipwreck or from when they used to have ships going past."

Warrnambool City Council chief executive officer Peter Schneider thanked the volunteers and said staff would monitor the situation.

"We've been made aware over the weekend of large volumes of rubbish, most of which is historical, that have been stirred up by the dredging activity in Lady Bay and deposited on the beach," he said.

"We know that a band of dedicated volunteers have been picking up this rubbish, and I just wanted to sincerely thank them for their hard work.

"Now that we are aware of the issue, our staff will be on the beach, when resources allow to monitor the situation and picking up any rubbish that they find.

"Similarly Council staff can assist in disposing of any of the material that is retrieved from the area by the volunteers."

He said residents had come to better understand the environment.

This shouldn't be our staff's job, it shouldn't be the Beach Patrol volunteers' jobs either, in fact this shouldn't be anyone's job," Mr Schneider said.

"The message is simple: put your rubbish in the bin, not in the ocean.

"Looking at what has washed ashore, some of the items date from the 1980s. We know that attitudes and awareness have changed over the decades and people now have a greater understanding of the impact that rubbish has on the environment."

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