Perth residents have praised the actions of a lone teenage rubbish ranger who spent her Saturday night cleaning up waste at Coogee Beach.
Weeks after WAtoday reported on a one-man campaign to rid South Beach Dog Beach of dog poo, another Perth resident spotted a teenage waste warrior operating at Coogee Beach.
More News Videos
Freo residents urged to pick up dog poop!
Andrew MacFarlane has taken it upon himself to clean up the poo of dogs whose owners can't be bothered.
Best friends Quinley Johnson-Begg and Kat Earle had gone to Coogee Beach for a walk on the jetty about 7.30pm on Saturday night when they saw a girl grab one of the public wheelie bins and take it to the beach.
Thinking her behaviour unusual, they stopped to watch, but the girl simply took the bin over to a pile of rubbish on the beach that she had obviously collected.
"We told her she was amazing," Ms Johnson-Begg said.
"She just smiled and said thank you. We think she was around 16 or 17.
"It was a big massive pile of rubbish. It looked like it took her ages."
Later, after their walk, they saw the teenager continuing to collect more rubbish in a different spot.
![The unknown teenage girl who spent her Saturday night picking up rubbish on Coogee Beach.](/web/20161025231845im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/8/m/h/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8mkj.png/1477197113625.jpg)
As well as individual efforts, other Perth communities have been taking up the challenge.
Some cleanups are being led by the Sea Shepherd Marine Debris Campaign Australia, others by individual groups such as Responsible Runners Scarborough, which holds monthly 30-minute beach cleanups around Perth.
The Guilderton community last year won the national Keep Australia Beautiful, Australian Clean Beaches Award for its efforts.
![Quinley Johnson-Begg and Kat Earle spotted the girl taking a wheelie bin to the beach to fill with rubbish.](/web/20161025231845im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/a/e/a/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8mkj.png/1477197113625.jpg)
A CSIRO study of the Australian coastline has found more than five pieces of rubbish on the coast for every person living in Australia.
Three-quarters of it was plastic, a lot of it consumer rubbish such as drink containers and plastic bags.
![Andrew McFarlane is running a continuing anti-dog poo campaign at South Beach.](/web/20161025231845im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/5/n/f/4/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8mkj.png/1477197113625.jpg)
Following the study, the CSIRO announced that globally, about a third of marine turtles had likely ingested debris, and this has increased since plastic production began in the 1950s.
Around the world, nearly half of all seabird species were likely to ingest debris, mistaking it for food, or swallowing it by accident, causing injury, weight loss and sometimes death.
![Just some of the microplastics that can be found in the world's oceans.](/web/20161025231845im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/w/g/f/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8mkj.png/1477197113625.jpg)
CSIRO predicts that plastic ingestion will affect 99 per cent of the world's seabird species by 2050.
The accepted wisdom is that prevention is better than cure, with incentives making a difference including South Australia's container deposit scheme.
The WA government recently announced plans to introduce a scheme. New South Wales and Queensland will introduce theirs in 2017 and 2018.
State and territory bans on plastic bags, an immediate ban on microbeads and container deposit schemes across the country by 2020 were among recommendations in an Australian Senate report into the problem completed this year following an inquiry.
CSIRO has developed an online national marine debris database where groups can contribute data about litter at their local beaches.