Thirty volunteers from across the Illawarra took it upon themselves to clean up hazardous building material from Wongawilli roads, land and waterways on Saturday.
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Polystyrene waffle pods used in concrete slabs from nearby housing developments were swept up and dumped across private and public land during wild winds in July.
Nicole Colquhoun was dismayed when driving around West Dapto to see the debris still strewn across land more than a month after the winds.
She called on Wollongong City Council to allocate more resources to pick up the debris but then decided to team up with Jess Whittaker from Plastic Wise Port Kembla to mobilise the community through Facebook to clean up the pollution.
Volunteers from Austinmer to Port Kembla to Kiama spent about three hours combing through long reeds and creeks.
"We pulled out a large number of full pods from the lake and creeks," Ms Colquhoun, who runs Plastic Wise Thirroul, said.
"We also concentrated on the drainage ditches, the grass in the new subdivisions and the lake foreshore to pick up the smaller bits.
"There was a crew in wet suits with a canoe who spent three hours in the lake.
"A drain retrieval crew was made up of small kids. The children were a great help because they could get into the edges of the drains to get jammed pieces.
"Hundreds of kilograms and dozens of bags were filled.
"The clean up was a huge success."
Ms Colquhoun said said the group concentrated on the creek area to reduce the amount of polystyrene pollution that would end up in Lake Illawarra and the ocean if it was not collected before rain falls.
She said Wollongong City Council workers helped in the clean up effort by collecting and disposing of the full bags of polystyrene.
"There has been no assistance from the Wongawilli building sites and the council is under the pump and don't have enough resources to clean up all the polystyrene pollution," she said.
"Council workers did help by taking the bags to Whytes Gully Waste and Resource Recover Centre where we expect it to be sent back to the manufacturer so it can be recycled."
Members from Plastic Wise from Port Kembla and Thirroul, Peloton Against Plastic, Sea Bird Rescue, Bushcare and Two Week Red Bin Challenge were the local environment groups who assisted.
Ms Colquhoun said there were some areas that the group couldn't access so she would notify the council to ask them to clean up the area.
"Hopefully our clean up inspires Wongawilli locals to spend 15 minutes each day picking up the rest of the mess," she said.
"There is a lot still there in the thick reeds.
"We only have one Earth and we are all a part of it. It doesn't matter if it is waste in Wongawilli, polystyrene never completely breaks down but ends up as tiny pieces in the food chain that everyone then eats. Pollution is everyone's problem."
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