Rifle found in Bulimba Creek during clean-up

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Rifle found in Bulimba Creek during clean-up

By Natalie Bochenski
Updated

A .22 calibre rifle has been pulled from Bulimba Creek at Carindale during a community clean-up effort.

The Oarsome Clean-up Crew were having pictures taken for a local paper around 7am Friday when founding member EJ Campbell spotted the butt of a gun from her kayak.

Greg Henderson from the Oarsome Cleanup Crew in a "trashy" photo to promote their waterway cleanup efforts.

Greg Henderson from the Oarsome Cleanup Crew in a "trashy" photo to promote their waterway cleanup efforts.

Her partner and co-founder Greg Henderson used a nifty nabber device to prod the gun, which he thought might have been a toy.

"We called the police who came down and fished it out, and it was a .22 calibre rifle, in good condition, a little bit of rust on the barrel, but it hadn't been sitting there long," he said.

The Oarsome Cleanup Crew discovered a gun in Bulimba Creek on Friday morning.

The Oarsome Cleanup Crew discovered a gun in Bulimba Creek on Friday morning.

"Not loaded, no magazine in it or anything, but that's the weirdest thing we've ever found."

The gun had been sitting in about 30 centimetres of water under the bridge near the corner of Scrub Road and Settlers Street.

But Mr Henderson said they couldn't say if had been thrown from the bridge.

"Just before the rain last week there was so much rubbish just floating there ... all the rain washed all that rubbish away," he said.

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Police were called to Bulimba Creek at Carindale on Friday morning to bag and tag a .22 rifle found in the water.

Police were called to Bulimba Creek at Carindale on Friday morning to bag and tag a .22 rifle found in the water.

"[The gun] could have just been floating amongst all that rubbish, we're not sure, there's just all sorts of bits and pieces floating around in that creek."

Police removed the gun.

Mr Henderson and his partner EJ Campbell founded the initiative three months ago after a fun day out kayaking through Nudgee Creek turned into a clean-up mission.

Since then, the pair has teamed up with friends and community members to remove thousands of kilograms of rubbish from Brisbane creeks, often taking "trashy" photos to help promote their efforts.

He hoped the rifle find would bring attention to what he called the "sorry state" of our waterways.

"At first glance you walk by these places and they look pretty clean, but you've just got to stand there and take a good look, and there's so much junk in our waterways, it's really sad," he said.

"Even now with all the education about where plastic ends up, a lot of people don't realise this stuff has got to go somewhere, and it ends up in the oceans."

He said while the gun was the most unusual item they'd discovered, other risky items included sharps containers full of syringes, pool cleaning chemicals and oil containers.

"Bulimba Creek is the place where balls go to die – mostly little rubber balls, tennis balls, cricket balls, golf balls, we've got a collection of about 400," he said.

"We generally find at least one wheelie bin per clean up, which comes in handy as we just pull it out and fill it with rubbish."

Mr Henderson said while plastics were a problem, they were relatively easy to remove, as opposed to polystyrene foam.

"It breaks up into all the little balls, and that stuff is all through our water," he said.

"It's just a really bad thing for our wildlife ... these poor creatures have got to live there, and this foam is just everywhere."

Mr Henderson said while they welcomed any interested volunteers, there was nothing to stop any interested local from heading to their local creek and doing their own clean-up.

"There are people who've been doing this for years, who just do it off their own back with no attention," he said.

"They're the inspiring ones."

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