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New group forms to keep Esperance clean

Indiana LysaghtKalgoorlie Miner
Whale tail sculpture on foreshore.
Camera IconWhale tail sculpture on foreshore. Credit: Stephen Scourfield/The West Australian, Stephen Scourfield

A new clean-up collective is keeping Esperance’s tidy, one piece of plastic at a time.

Led by local environmental advocate Noel Fleming, Clean Up Australia is the latest initiative registered with Keep Australia Beautiful.

The previous clean-up group Keep Esperance Beautiful disbanded on January 31 after five years of picking up trash.

As a former chairperson of Keep Esperance Beautiful, Mr Fleming has grand plans to maintain meticulous streets including a new take on using soft plastics.

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“Single-use water bottles normally get discarded and end up in landfill as well as all the scrunchy food wrapping — that really small stuff that you can crunch up in your hand,” he said.

“I’m going to cut it up and stuff it in the bottles.

“I’m going to make a wall out of them out at my little cottage.”

The idea came from locals in Lombok where Mr Fleming has initiated beach clean-ups.

He said the single-use plastic fills the ocean after monsoonal rains but the Indonesians have found an ingenious use for the litter.

“They actually use it for building walls for structures and buildings,” he said.

“It becomes an insulation wall and then they can line it on the outside to make it weather-proof and you can line it on the inside or leave it as it is as a bit of a feature.”

Mr Fleming said it was a way to prevent the waste ending up in landfill before the container deposit scheme is rolled out across the state on July 2.

This is not the first sign of ingenuity from the environmentalist.

Late last year he launched bumper stickers to spread a message of sustainability (“don’t be a tosser, just bin it”) and worked hard to grow the previous group’s profile.

He was recognised by the town in the Australia Day Citizen of the Year awards for his environmental efforts.

The group will start its fortnightly clean-ups on March 1 — Clean Up Australia Day.

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