Scouring the beaches: volunteers collect beach trash to mark World Oceans Day

Dozens of people scoured a beach in Vancouver looking for little pieces ofplastic and other litter to mark World Oceans Day, one of several similar events held across Canada.

Since 2002, people around the world have come together on June 8 to collectively honour the importance of oceans.

Mason Vander Ploeg, 11,was one of about 100 people who cleaned up a beach in Vancouver's English Bay.

He says he's seen animals eating garbage on beaches.

"I've seen lots of birds eating straws, little pieces of hard plastic," he said.

Vander Pleog runs a social media page, which he uses to help convince people to do things to protect the Earth, such as cleaning up garbage.

"The more you do it, it just gets fun," he said.

The federal government marked World Oceans Day onSaturday by announcing $13 million in new funding for Canada'scoastal ecosystems.

Federal Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson saidthe moneywould support an additional 24 projects under Ottawa's CoastalRestoration Fund to help restore habitats along Canada's shorelines.

It's the third instalment distributed to the fund, which haspreviously supported 40 projects across the country.

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According to the ministry, the projects include recovering wild salmon habitats affected by climate change and mitigating theimpacts of infrastructure development on coastal ecosystems.

Wilkinson also announced a $5-million investment in nine new datacollection projects in the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert,in order to assess the impacts of shipping traffic and climatechange on the coast.

Both are part of the federal government's $1.5-billion OceansProtection Plan launched in 2016.

Adrian Midwood, executive director of Plastic Oceans, which runs campaigns to reduce waste ending up in the ocean, says all the efforts, from government policiesto beach cleanups, are helping.

He said Saturday at the Vancouver beach cleanup that just a year ago volunteers would have found many plastic straws.

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This year there were none, thanks to companies phasing out their use, but also a greater social awareness about waste and its impact.

"So that's actually really good news to see that these things are working, the social consciousness is getting up to [a] high level, which means we're going to see a reduction in pollution," he said.