Nearly 300 people take part in Great Shoreline Cleanup

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RICHMOND (NEWS1130) – Almost 300 people took part in the Great Shoreline Cleanup today in Richmond.

The environmental event kicked off at Iona Beach just north of YVR.

Jill Dwyer with the Vancouver Aquarium says volunteers picked up over 800 kilograms of trash from the beach.

“They pulled out a really large tire, a smaller tire, lots of metal, also smaller more common things that we find on the shoreline, like cigarette butts, beverage bottles, food wrappers, that kind of thing,” she says.

She says the latter items are part of the Dirty Dozen list – items commonly found on the shore, which are mostly associated with recreational activities.

In the past, they’ve collected everything from wedding dresses to false teeth from the shore.

“Shoreline litter is really one of the biggest problems facing our waterway today, what we want to do is get the litter off of our shorelines before it gets into the waterways and causes problems for the animals and people that live there,” Dwyer says.

This year’s crowd was the largest to have taken part in the event since it first launched in 1984 in Stanley Park.

It’s the third largest environmental cleanup in the world.

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