We all had a fantastic time for our Melbourne Catchment Workshop today! The sun was out and the chilly wind did not dampen the excitement of our Ambassadors who began the day at the beautiful Narambi Reserve. Mandy explained how the stormwater drain works with the slope and flow of this amazing wetland watershed to trap storm litter from flowing out to our beaches. The Ambassadors then had a session with Melbourne Water at the Reserve’s Litter Trap where the litter bag was lifted out to highlight the huge issue with plastics in our drains and how much work and thus considerable cost is attached to trap the litter discarded in our parks and streets!
Ambassadors had a great time undertaking a Healthy Waterways Workshop which included a water pollution testing lesson, and a hunt for pollution tolerant macroinvertebrates in the filtration watershed!! After lunch we headed off to Frankston foreshore Pier for a lesson on beach litter surveys, followed by a litter collect, sort, and report session focusing on the sources of litter, and how to report litter collections on the simple to use Litter Stopper App. We then walked along Kananook Creek to the closest litter trap that catches the litter flowing from inland. The Ambassadors were amazed to see just how much litter is discarded in this waterway, and the vital importance of creek litter traps to stop the litter from entering our beautiful Port Phillip Bay!
Thank you so much to the awesome folks from Melbourne Water who were so generous with their time today and as always to the fabulous ISIC teachers and parent/carers for transporting the Ambassadors to this brilliant workshop!