Group removes 3.4 tonnes of rubbish from beach
Group removes 3.4 tonnes of rubbish from Cape York Beach
Friday July 25 2014, 9:35am
Environmental organisation Tangaroa Blue Foundation has conducted a clean-up of another remote Cape York beach.
The group removed 3.4 tonnes of debris from Chilli Beach in the Kutini-Payamu National Park between July 18 and 22.
As usual, the all pieces of rubbish removed by Tangaroa Blue were logged for inclusion in the Australian Marine Debris Database, which is used to develop understanding of seaborne trash.
On the 6.4-kilometre section of beach, the group found 4000 thongs, 2285 plastic drink bottles, 2147 pens, 1203 toothbrushes, 1074 shampoo bottles, in addition to a whopping 27,406 plastic bottle tops and lids.
Research indicates that 90 per cent of the rubbish came from other parts of Australia or otherseas, brought to the beach by ocean currents and the wind.
Many of the peices of rubbish still had international labels attached, indicating they were only recently introduced to the water.
This is the third year running that the group has cleaned up the beach, with removal of debris backlog in the last two years meaning there was a lower overall weight of rubbish collected this year.
Most of the rubbish collected on the beach is destined for Cook Shire landfills or Brisbane for recycling, while local artists will ‘upcycle’ the huge amount of bottle tops.
Heidi Taylor from Tangaroa Blue said she and and the other 60 people involved in the clean up were ‘exhausted’ but there was still plenty of work to be done.
“Before we started three years ago, this beach had never been cleaned so we were seeing debris that had been there for decades,” Ms Taylor said.
“Doing it every year gives us a chance to see a snapshot of what turns up on this beach in 12 months, and 3.4 tonnes of debris on a 6.4-kilometre beach in that amount of time is still a phenomenal amount of rubbish. “
Tangaroa Blue has logged nearly 3 million pieces of rubbish froim 1200 beaches around Australia, into the database, which they say will be their main method of trying to reduce levels of pollution.
“As the human population increases our plastic use is only going to increase with it,” Ms Taylor said.
“Some of these beaches we are cleaning every months which gives us great regular data on exactly what washes up and where it comes from and we need that data to create change in industry, legislation and society - without it, no-one will listen to us.
“We really need to have a long-term change in both industry and behavior with things like reducing single-use plastics and throwaways, plastics that are biodegradable and a change in social attitudes - otherwise the problem is only going to get worse.”