WATCH: A barge has arrived in Ucluelet to ship away debris from the Japan tsunami that washed up on local beaches. Elaine Yong reports.
On remote beaches in Barkley Sound, just to the south of Ucluelet, sits bag after bag of garbage.
Twenty tons in total, all about to be shipped to the United States – and much of it coming from the remnants of the 2011 Japan tsunami.
“This barge is on its way to Seattle, Washington for recycling,” says Karla Robinson, Environmental and Emergency Services Manager for the District of Ucluelet.
“What can’t be recycled there will be taken by train to Oregon for landfilling.”
The barge Robinson points to is the 91-metre barge Dioskouroi. It has 3300 superstacks, each filled with one ton of marine debris, primarily Styrofoam and plastics.
The crew has been gone up and down the pacific coastline as part of international cleanup effort funded partly by the Japana government. Ucluelet was the only B.C. community to take part in the project, and received more than $80,000 and dozens of volunteers to help with the project.
READ MORE: Ucluelet gets $80,000 to fund Japanese tsunami debris cleanup
It’s hard to determine just how much of the debris comes from the Japanese tsunami. But the Alaskan group leading the project says the volume has increased 50% since 2011. And more than four years later, it keeps coming in.
“We had a relatively light storm season in 2013/2014, I wouldn’t say the peak is over,” says Kate Le Souef, Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup Manager, who organized volunteers to help with the effort last week.
“Debris from the tsunami is definitely still arriving.”
WATCH: District of Ucluelet’s Karla Robinson has more on the community clean up
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