With more than 140,000 residents, Randwick City is a busy place. It's a great place to live for many reasons, but if you ask most residents, it's our beaches that they love. We agree - our beaches are the jewel in the Randwick City crown.

At Council we work very hard to keep our oceans clean. Our outdoor workers comb the beaches each morning to prevent garbage and organics from entering the water. Plus, we've installed 35 Gross Pollutant traps across our City, which help catch pollution before it enters the ocean. But there's some pollution that can't be caught - micro plastics or chemicals, for instance. But you can help!

Here are five ways you can help keep our oceans clean - just by making a few small changes.

1) Wash your car on the grass
When you wash your car with soap and other chemicals (like glass cleaner or sprays), these get washed down the drain. By washing your car on the grass, they'll be absorbed before reaching the ocean. It's always a good idea to choose non-toxic, environmentally friendly cleaners when you can.

2) Clean up in the laundry
Doing some DIY? If you're painting, lacquering or oiling your deck, it's a good idea to try to avoid these substances from being washed down the drain. Rather than rinsing your brushes in the gutter, rinse them inside in the laundry sink or in a tub. This water will be treated and filtered, unlike drain water that goes straight to the beach.

3) Pick up after your dog
So many of our community's dog owners do the right thing and pick up after their dogs and we thank you! Dog poo contains bacteria and is high in nitrogen and phosphorus, which negatively affects water quality at the beach. Plus, no one wants to swim in it!

4) Use your green bin
Doing some gardening? It's easy to get the whipper snipper out and leave the trimmings on the street. Take a few extra minutes to sweep up and put the cut-offs in your green organics bin so they don't wash down the drain. Same goes for leaf-blowing, pruning and weeding! Adding these organics to your green bin keeps our oceans clean.

5) Try not to over-stuff your bins
When bins are too full sometimes the garbage flies around rather than being easily emptied into our trucks. Ensuring the bin lid closes easily and properly will keep the garbage inside the bin and prevent it from flying off into the street if there's a gust of wind.

Want to learn more about where our drains go? Here's a link to our endbeachpollution.sydney website. Have a look around - you can even adopt the drain closest to your house. Or you can explore the drains in Randwick City and see where they flow.