Quadra Island’s 3-month-long beach clean-up finished over the weekend.
“Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, we would go on a remote beach hike, to different areas on Quadra that were hard to access. We had to go hiking for maybe an hour or so to some of these places and then collect and leave debris, and then we’d have to return by boat another day,” explained Nevil Hand, who organized the campaign.
“Near the beginning, it was just Heather and I. We’d put out an announcement on Facebook then maybe I’d make a few phone calls, but come the time when everyone was supposed to be there, it was often just her and I.”
“As the weather got better, more people started coming out. I think that some people realize that it’s not just picking up garbage. You tie it in with a hike and you’re enjoying the beaches and we’re seeing wildlife. Probably a core of less than 15 people were keen.”
“That’s why we came up with the prizes. In previous years everyone got coffee, cookies and cake and that seemed to be enough. Now we have to do it twice a year, maybe more. It’s hard to motivate someone to pick up other people’s garbage.”
CC: How big of a problem is debris on Quadra Island?
Nevil Hand: “It’s a pretty big problem, just how the weather patterns and the tide and how Quadra is situated at the north end of Georgia straight. We seem to receive a lot of debris directly from the south of us, from all the big townships and cities even as far away as Bellingham. We’ve had signage and floats from all the way up from North Vancouver, Vancouver, you name it.”
“Before 2019, the Sierra Club used to do a one day beach cleanup event, which was tied in with Earth Day. Then they just decided they weren’t doing it anymore, maybe partly due to COVID.”
“In 2020 my wife Heather and I decided that we still wanted to get exercise and go out on the beaches. Once a week we’d go out for three or four hours and fill a few sacks full of garbage.”
“After about a year, I came up with the idea of starting a Facebook page because we had no funding and Facebook is free. We were able to attract a few other interested people.”
“Then there was the COVID relief money from the provincial government and maybe a bit of the federal government’s money. Spirit of the West kayaks got a contract to do a fall cleanup in 2021. We assisted with some of our Facebook group members on that cleanup. They had a commercial contract, paid staff, boats and all the equipment that we didn’t have, and they were able to do a big thorough cleanup.”
“Then six months later, it’s all back again and there was no more COVID relief money. We’re back to doing it ourselves.”
CC: People have been talking to me about what you’ve been doing the last three months. How did you come up with the idea of having a contest?
NH: “We came up with the idea of the contest in late November last year. We knew it takes a long time to motivate people. The best chances to remove the debris, in my mind, is after the winter storms, when the weather starts to get better. Before people get busy with family and visitors and want to do other things in the summer. We timed the contest to start at the beginning of March and end just yesterday, at the end of May.
CC: How much did you collect and are you going to have to do it again next year?
NH: “We’ll have to do it after every southeastern storm. It just doesn’t stop coming. The big stuff seems to come in the winter and of course that’s when less people are out on the beaches to do any cleanup of any kind.”
CC: How big of a problem is debris on Quadra Island?
Nevil Hand: “It’s a pretty big problem, just how the weather patterns and the tide and how Quadra is situated at the north end of Georgia straight. We seem to receive a lot of debris directly from the south of us, from all the big townships and cities even as far away as Bellingham. We’ve had signage and floats from all the way up from North Vancouver, Vancouver, you name it.”
“Before 2019, the Sierra Club used to do a one day beach cleanup event, which was tied in with Earth Day. Then they just decided they weren’t doing it anymore, maybe partly due to COVID.”
“In 2020 my wife Heather and I decided that we still wanted to get exercise and go out on the beaches. Once a week we’d go out for three or four hours and fill a few sacks full of garbage.”
“After about a year, I came up with the idea of starting a Facebook page because we had no funding and Facebook is free. We were able to attract a few other interested people.”
“Then there was the COVID relief money from the provincial government and maybe a bit of the federal government’s money. Spirit of the West kayaks got a contract to do a fall cleanup in 2021. We assisted with some of our Facebook group members on that cleanup. They had a commercial contract, paid staff, boats and all the equipment that we didn’t have, and they were able to do a big thorough cleanup.”
“Then six months later, it’s all back again and there was no more COVID relief money. We’re back to doing it ourselves.”
CC: People have been talking to me about what you’ve been doing the last three months. How did you come up with the idea of having a contest?
NH: “We came up with the idea of the contest in late November last year. We knew it takes a long time to motivate people. The best chances to remove the debris, in my mind, is after the winter storms, when the weather starts to get better. Before people get busy with family and visitors and want to do other things in the summer. We timed the contest to start at the beginning of March and end just yesterday, at the end of May.
CC: How much did you collect and are you going to have to do it again next year?
NH: “We’ll have to do it after every southeastern storm. It just doesn’t stop coming. The big stuff seems to come in the winter and of course that’s when less people are out on the beaches to do any cleanup of any kind.”
“This particular winter, since our November cleanup, it looked like a marina exploded to the south of us because we’ve got so many large plastic coated foam billets or just raw foam and sections of dock, tires filled with foam etc. We had an amazing amount of foam this spring collection.”
“We anticipated two 40 yard bins that the Comox Strathcona Waste Management people brought to us on Friday. We filled them both, plus another bin that was from a contractor on the island, a little bit smaller. And we still have to get another bin over here to get 136 tires filled with foam. There’s another 30 tires as well, various sizes. The BC Tire Stewardship Foundation has something to do with the tires and they’ll come and somehow recycle some of them, if they can. There’s still stuff all over the yard that’s going to have to be dealt with today and tomorrow. That’s going to be handled by the Comox Strathcona people, they’re bringing another crew back.”
CC: Where were you finding this stuff?
NH: “We were as far up as Deepwater Bay, Plumper Bay, Maud Island. Those areas do collect a fair bit of debris, but it’s amazing how much different it is than the south. We don’t get oyster trays past Seymour Narrows. On the south side we get a lot of the aquaculture stuff just because of the currents, the big dock sections, flotation cubes and they have 12 foot long pieces of raw foam. There’s plenty to do just on the east side of Quadra, from the lighthouse all the way around Rebecca Spit. We also went up to Open Bay, the Shellalligan Pass area on the east side of Quadra, which is another remote area, but you can drive fairly close and then hike in. Up north we were getting large ropes, pieces of foam, barrels and the usual stuff.”
CC: Did you get any funding for the contest?
NH: “The most expensive thing is the bins and the trucking, and they’ve been provided by the Comox Strathcona Waste Management and Ocean Legacy Foundation. That was their two bins that were here yesterday. Delta has a recycling facility. The bins will be taken down to their plant to be picked through and recycled (what can be) and the landfill (the rest of it). That expense was covered.”
“Personal fuel is not covered, but we got another additional $500 from Comox Strathcona Waste Management. I received $500 from the Campbell River Community Foundation, and we received a thousand dollars because I reached out to the BC Shellfish Growers Association and they graciously sent me a cheque with carte blanche to do with what I want. We chose to take our $2,000 and we approached local businesses to see if they would contribute more. When they did, I bought more prizes back off of them in the form of gift certificates for the restaurants, or e-bike rentals, or kayak trips and golf course passes. We’ve got a mixed bag of prizes. So we’ve really tried to involve the island businesses and encourage people to go back and spend their dollars at the local businesses.”
“The prizes were just awarded yesterday afternoon, around three o’clock. My wife Heather put together gift bags with a variety of things in them. A lot of volunteers have spent hours driving, picking up material from different addresses and so they got special gifts. We had 10 pizzas delivered from the Clove pizza restaurant, which was paid for by the Comox Strathcona Waste Management people. We also bought food vouchers from them to give out as prizes.”
“A lot of volunteers have spent hours driving, picking up material from different addresses, and so they got special gifts.”
CC: How were you distributing the prizes?
NH: “We had five different categories.”
“We had an individual category for the most collected for which, because of the amounts that were coming in, we were doing truckload assessments. We couldn’t weigh the material. There was far too much to deal with, not enough people, not enough time, and not enough space to set up. So we used a judge, Stephanie Valdal from the Comox Strathcona Waste Management, who’s an expert in waste management and she was the ultimate judge. We had a solo category, family categories, the most unusual item found and artistically created categories as well.”
CC: Would you feel comfortable saying the names of any of the winners over the air?
“Okay. The first for ‘Artistic’ is Judith Tait, second was the Hartley family, and third was Adrian Davis for artistic.”
“For the ‘Most Unusual,’ Linda McCluskey was first, Josephine – I don’t have her last name – was second, Bev and John Barkley were third.”
“For the ‘Family category,” first was Steven and Carrie Ford, second was Bev and John Barkley, third was Bill Dubois and his family, fourth was Monty Sky Diamond.”
“In the ‘Individual Category,’ first was John Arnold, second was Tyler Jansen, and third was Hal Reveley.”
CC: So you’re going to have to do it again in six months?
NH: “I could see that even yesterday morning, as I was eating my corn flakes before going to the first beach cleanup spot. I saw one of those black balls floating by in front of our house. Sure enough, it lodged up on the rocks at low tide. I went down and grabbed that before I drove away. It’s constant. It doesn’t stop.”
“We have to stop it from getting into the environment in the first place. The hardest thing is industry is sloppy. There’s bad weather. Some of it’s accidental, but a lot of it’s preventable. It seems like very few people to the south of us care about their pollution.”
“If they see it on the side of the road, it’s heading for the ditch. If it’s in the ditch, it’s heading for a river. And if it’s in the river, it’s going to the ocean. Or it goes straight into the ocean from the shores or out of boats.”
“People just have to secure their cargo. Don’t leave stuff loose on the docks. It all blows in. We’re finding plastic patio furniture that just blows off of people’s boats or docks and even car bumpers. It’s amazing how many car parts we pull off the beaches.”
Top image credit: Counting some of the debris – courtesy the Dream Team Facebook Page
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