North Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club

North Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club is proud in its commitment to look at ways we can help the Town of Cottesloe and the wider Western Australian community through our environmental and sustainability initiatives.

Welcome to our “Eco Surf Program’”.

What is our Eco Surf Program

Our Eco Surf program looks at simple and innovative ways our club can educate, participate, lead and assist in moving toward a circular economy: that is to refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle.

We have a leadership team of 13 Eco Surf Champions aged between 7 and 13 who assist with Nipper Education including movie nights, activities, beach cleans and networking with not for profit organisations, the Town of Cottesloe, schools, businesses and other like-minded organisations to make a difference.

Each quarter we send out a newsletter to our membership of over 2200 including what we are doing, happenings in the community and what our members can do to make a difference environmentally.

Our current Eco Surf Champions are:

Eliza Wood (Junior Ambassador), Amelie Strang, Alessandro Bourke, Zara Hart, Jospehine Constantine, Anika Wood, Hugo Marsden, Eliza Dawson, Ben Gregory, Sophie Morgan, Madeleine Morrisey, Juliette Wallace and Alaisdair Marsden.

(Image care of Pelli Bags – our Eco Surf Champions looking for marine debris)

To date our partners have included:

• Keep Australia Beautiful
• Western Regional Metropolitan Council WRMC
• Town of Cottesloe
• Linneys
• Ocean Zone
• Bankwest Claremont
• Pelli Bags
• Greenbatch
• Perth NRM
• OneStraw
• Minderoo
• CSIRO
• Cottesloe Film Festival

Plastic Free July – now an annual beach event

Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans and beautiful communities.

You can be part of plastic free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastic and registering to be part of our annual beach clean held at North Cottesloe Beach. Subscribe to our newsletter or register with KABC to express your interest for next year.

This year, 2020, we had 175 volunteers pick up 138 kilograms of rubbish between the beach of Swanbourne and Cottesloe in just 1 hour!

Take3fortheSea

In November 2018 we launched our Eco Surf program through a commitment with Take3fortheSea – an international not for profit organisation aimed at reducing the amount of plastic pollution going into our oceans.  The message is simple “take 3 pieces of rubbish off the beach every time you leave”.

Due to current constrains with COVID-19 Take3fortheSea has stopped its surf lifesaving programs.

However, although our partnership is currently on hold, we still encourage the message.

Image care of Mark Powell, RockFish

Did You Know?

FACT: That if we don’t act now by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.

FACT: Take away coffee cups are the second highest contributor to landfill behind plastic bottles.

FACT: Every minute, one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into our oceans.

Our beach cleans – what we find

Lots of people say our beach here at Cottesloe is clean.

To date we have collected 182 kilograms of rubbish in five beach cleans. This has been made up of thousands of pieces of stuff found outside our surf lifesaving club.

We have found cigarette butts, sugar wrappers, takeaway coffee cups, straws, mentos wrappers and a few weird things like a car antenna, an old fishing trap, a steam iron, and hotel room card.

What is really gross are finding what we first thought were lollipop sticks – they are actually sticks from cotton buds which people have used to clean their ears.  People do this at home and put the tips down the sink or flush them down the toilet.  The tips go down the drain and end up on Cottesloe Beach.

Our Water Filter Station – refill and rehydrate

Thanks to a grant from the Keep Australian Beautiful Council our club has been fortunate to install a refillable filtered water station for all beach goers to refill their water bottles.

This station is ready for the 2021 season and located for members and the public opposite our ski shed along the footpath.

All part of our Eco Surf Program and sustainability initiative.

Cash for Containers

From 1^st October 2020 most aluminium, glass, plastic, steel and liquid paperboard drink containers between 150ml and 3L are eligible for a 10c refund per container.

You simply take your containers to a refund point across Western Australia and receive 10 cents for every eligible container you return which you can keep or donate.

North Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club would love your donation to assist our Eco Surf program further.  This season we have decided to donate any monies received from our cash for containers for new equipment including boards.

Our scheme ID is C10294427

Our nearest drop off points are Greenbatch Showgrounds Gate 8 Ashton Drive Mount Claremont, Return-It 10 Selby Street Shenton Park or the Fremantle Recycling Centre 81 Knutsford Street Fremantle.  Click here for more drop off points.

More information

For further information on how you can become involved in our Eco Surf Program please contact our Senior Ambassador Sonja Belle-Wood via email ecosurf@ncslsc.com or 0421460 009.

Please note, our Eco Surf program relies on the support of volunteers, grants and sponsorship. Any assistance to continue with the support of this is appreciated.

“We are at a unique stage in our history.  Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we ad the power to do something about that.  Surely, we have a responsibility to care for our blue planet.  The future of humanity and indeed, all life on Earth, now depends on us”

Sir David Attenborough, Blue Planet II