The beauty and the beast at Point Road

But on a recent trip to the lake, down the track at the end of Point Road, Tuncurry, she was struck by the vivid contrast between the beautiful blue water and white sand; and the ugly pile of rubbish she soon amassed.  She took a photo (shown above) to capture the stark contrast.  

60 per cent of sea birds have plastic in their gut...click here

“I found all of that in half an hour,” she said of the pile that included glass bottles, cans, plastic bags and bottles and fishing equipment.

The photo was taken on Easter Monday but she doesn’t believe tourists were responsible.

“That spot is used mostly by locals.  Every year you see it down there and it’s usually always locals.  I do so many clean ups down there – I only just cleaned it up three weeks ago.”

She believes that education is the key to stamping out the problem and highlights the massive production of single-use plastic products as a contributing factor.

Ginny Schmis couldn’t agree more, posting on the Keep Our Paradise Rubbish Free page:

“This is disgusting but unfortunately people will always be lazy. The real problem is that literally everything is packaged in single use plastics. Even when unrecyclable plastic is disposed of 'properly' it’s dumped in ever expanding landfill where it still lasts forever. We need to get rid of single use plastics. Humanity survived without it up until a few decades ago and look at the damage it's done to the earth already."

Tina is a mother of three children, Tina said where once her children asked “why you?” they now understood the importance of the responsibility.

“I think education is the answer.  I might be a bit of a garbage nazi and it might be a bit of a joke, but picking up garbage is so important.

In recent months she has started spreading her message in a number of local schools.