THREE rehabilitated pelicans were released back into the wild and 20,535 pieces of rubbish collected as volunteers gave Woodman Point a scrub-up on Saturday morning.

About 130 people attended the community clean-up, which was an initiative of the Sea Shepherd Marine Debris Campaign. The marine debris team’s been holding monthly clean-ups and organiser Liza Dicks says it was their “worst one yet”, referring to the 619kg of crap people pulled off the sand dunes and out of the fragile coastal bushland.

• Three rehabilitated pelicans enjoy the breeze across their wings before making their way back to the wild. Photo by Steve Grant

Ironically, the group had been warned by a bureaucrat from parks and wildlife, which manages the park, that being winter “there may not be much litter for [volunteers] to pick up”.

Ms Dicks said the event was successful in bringing people together to celebrate a beautiful park.

“We exceeded our target and I believe made a difference to the area as well as bringing attention to the amount of rubbish that had been discarded here,” she said.

One of the biggest litter issues the volunteers uncovered was the thousands of plastic covers from straws stuck to the side of fruit juice cartons.

During the day, Cockburn mayor Logan Howlett launched a new strategy to combat the problem of fishing gear left on ammo jetty, some of which was responsible for the wounds of one of the released pelicans. The Clean Ocean, Clean Catch initiative features a YouTube video and stickers.