Sea Shelter founder Lia Pereira said she was happy to see 61 members of the community turn out to collect rubbish from the mangroves along Marsh Road but disappointed that after the five hour clean-up, it was evident they had barely scratched the surface.

“I'm so happy so much of the community got involved and helped us make such a difference,” Mrs Pereira said. “But it is so sad that in five hours we only covered just over 1km of the road and we pulled out literally tonnes of rubbish. People don’t realise how much effort it takes to clean-up after they chuck it away.”

Mrs Pereira, who also owns and operates Irukandji Shark and Ray Encounters with husband Ryan, organised to close a 3.5km section of Marsh Road at Bobs Farm on June 9 to carry out a clean-up of the mangroves that line the busy road.

However, in the five hours the road was closed, volunteers only reached a 1km stretch of the road due to the amount of rubbish that was found in the mangroves.

The official count for the day was 18,099 items collected – 11,163 of those were plastic – which came in weighing 2.9 tonnes.

Some of the notable items included:

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“Though the mangroves are known for capturing items like plastic floating in the sea, these items definitely came from the road rather than the ocean,” Mrs Pereira said.

“With minimal marine and fishing materials found, thousands of items we recovered would have originated from cars. A massive thank you to everybody who helped.”

The June 9 event was Sea Shelter’s second large scale clean up, coming after volunteers pulled close to 3000 pieces of plastic from the break wall at Nelson Bay and the marina in December.

In March, a group of 20 oyster farmers from Port Stephens collected 208kg of rubbish from the Salamander Bay foreshore and bushland. 

Included in the haul was 447 bottles, hundreds of plastic fragments, 19 thongs, rope, construction items and a roll of carpet.

Mrs Pereira said she was hopeful to organise another clean-up of Marsh Road in the future. When would be determined by money as the cost to close the road, ensuring it is safe for volunteers to collect rubbish, is “expensive”, Mrs Pereira said.

Sea Shelter’s next clean-up will be an underwater dive clean up at d’Albora Marina in Nelson Bay in November.

The Port Stephens conservation group also perform rescues of marine animals. The most recent was a Numb Ray that had swallowed an entire mullet and some plastic which fermented in its gut, causing it to float.