THEY call her the garbage warrior. And Tina Gogerley, 38, of Tuncurry wears the name with pride.
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Keen to see her region pristine, Tina is always willing to clean up, where others don’t.
“I care about where I live. I grew up here and I love this area. There is a very big problem everywhere with people leaving their rubbish when out enjoying our waterways, beaches, parks, national parks and
bush lands," she said.
"It's everywhere and there isn't a place I've visited for a long time that gets left in a rubbish free state.
“Car parks are another problem with people dropping their rubbish from cars and driving away leaving it there,” Tina said.
Tina cited the end of Point Road as a particularly bad place for rubbish.
“You have to walk there or take the four wheel drive track. It backs onto the oyster leases,” Tina said.
"This is a place where you can swim, fish and picnic. But it has become quite disgusting with the huge amount of rubbish left there,” Tina said.“A lot of people go there, light a fire and have a few drinks. There is only one place for rubbish and that is in the water and that creates all sorts of problems."
Tina said at the last clean up, she picked up nappies, fishing gear, bait bags, bottles, cans and food.
She has since put up her own signs and said the hand painted sign asking people to take away their rubbish, had made a considerable difference.
Another place she sites as a bad littering area is McBrides Beach at the base of Cape Hawke, also accessible only by four wheel drive.
“I went there to clean up and I had a trailer full to overflowing,” she said.
“There are no bins there as it would be too hard to collect them. I think a Council sign wouldn’t have the same effect, but I am noticing a good response to my hand written signs. It makes people think about it,” she said.
Ironically, Tina said she believed that often rubbish was worse in parks where bins were provided.“Maybe because there is a bin, people believe someone will collect it from the park, so they just leave it lying around.
They think someone else will collect it,” she said.
Tina said if the areas weren’t cleaned up, the easiest solution by councils and national parks was to close the area.
“Isn’t it easier to just take your rubbish home?” she said.
A single mother with three children, Tina said where once her children asked “why you?” they now understood the importance of the responsibility.
“I think education is the answer.
"I might be a bit of a garbage-nazi and it might be a bit of a joke, but picking up garbage is so important."
Tina said her next area was going to be the track linking the main road to the football ground near Tuncurry High School.
“There’s a lot of rubbish through there - cans, food, household waste. I am not sure what to do with it all.”