A Richmond-based non-profit received $2.5 million from the provincial government to clean up 353 kilometres of heavily polluted shorelines along the lower half of B.C.
Ocean Legacy Foundation (OLF), which creates global plastic pollution response programs, has partnered with local First Nations and other non-profit organizations to remove marine debris from the coastlines.
Chloé Dubois, co-founder and executive director of OLF, said the non-profit aims to remove about 200 to 300 tonnes of marine debris, which would be classified as materials such as fibreglass and mixed plastics and metals.
The funding comes from the provincial government’s Clean Coast, Clean Waters (CCCW) initiative, which is an “important part of the CleanBC Plastics Action Plan to reduce plastic waste and pollution in the environment,” read a press release.
Dubois said this is the third year the non-profit has received the CCCW grant, which is offered on an application or merit basis.
Ocean Legacy’s project is creating 175 jobs for local First Nations and non-Indigenous community members and contractors, who will work alongside the non-profit's core team, Dubois explained.
“It provides employment training, different certifications, and all of these are really helping to foster economic growth and skill development within the communities where we're working,” she added.
The effort spans about 15 individual cleanups, including around 1.6 kilometres in Richmond off of the Fraser River.
Areas of Vancouver Island are also a part of the project, including working in the north with the Namgis and Quatsino First Nations and the west with the Kyuquot, Checleseht and Tla-o-qui-aht peoples.
OLF is also leading cleanups in the Sunshine Coast with the Squamish and Shíshálh Nations. Within this region, OLF is partnering with Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre, a non-profit aquarium, in cleaning up the towns of Sechelt and Squamish.
With Surfrider Foundation Canada, an environmental conservation organization, Ocean Legacy will clean up southern Vancouver Island and Ucluelet, with a focus on more urban and residential areas.
The province also provided OLF with an additional $355,000 to remove derelict vessels around northern Vancouver Island with the Namgis First Nation. Dubois said the project is complete, where about 400 tonnes of vessels and material was removed.
This funding contributed to the creation of 40 jobs.
The CCCW grant outlines that all recipients must complete their projects by Feb. 29.
All of OLF’s cleanups — except for in Richmond and Forward Bay — are finished or almost done, with the non-profit working on sorting and processing materials at one of their depots.
Ocean Legacy takes detailed data on the composition of the materials they collect for all of their projects, which can then be provided to the government.
“When we can understand what the material composition is along the shoreline or even in the vessels we're collecting, we can help influence different policies to better regulate and manage those materials that are leaking and polluting the coastline,” Dubois said.
Besides OLF, the other organizations to receive the grant from the province are Campbell River Association of Tour Operators, Coastal Restoration Society, Rugged Coast Research Society and K’yuu Enterprise Corporation.
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