The Lower Mainland Green Team had a beach day in White Rock Saturday (July 15), but rather than laying in the sun or building sandcastles, the team was busy cleaning up litter and removing invasive blackberry plants.
The team engaged 48 community members in the West Beach cleanup.
According to a release, 112 bathtubs full, or 18 cubic metres of invasive Himalayan blackberry was removed, to continue restoration work being done by the team and the City of White Rock on the beachside habitat.
The Lower Mainland Green Team first started digging up blackberry from the same stretch of the beach in May 2021 and has seen a noticeable reduction in the amount of blackberry regrowing each year, the release noted.
“Today we discovered beach pea, a beautiful flowering native plant, in the areas we first cleared and have been maintaining. This was incredibly exciting for us to find and demonstrates that our hard work is paying off with more biodiversity and resiliency returning to these dunes,” it said.
READ ALSO: Green Team removes ‘31 bathtubs’ worth of invasive plants from White Rock’s Ruth Johnson Park
More than 20 pounds of litter was also collected from the beach, with the top item collected being cigarette butts.
Volunteers of all ages, backgrounds and experience levels joined the effort, including first-timers and experienced Green Teamers.
“This program really improves the health of the environment as well as uniting the community to reach a common goal,” said volunteer Angad Gill.
The cleanup was the fourth of six activities the team has planned in partnership with the City of White Rock this year.
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