Marine debris cleanup – where did that hockey stick come from?

February 15, 2012

Tangaroa Blue Ocean Care Society have recently released a comprehensive report covering the activities and results from their annual 2011 WA Marine Debris cleanup. A staggering number of over 1200 volunteers from over 50 organisations combined their energies to collect and record 75,832 items of debris from Kimberly Coast to the South Coast of Western Australia. A total of 110 separate clean-ups were carried out with a combined length of almost 200km’s. The following is a brief summary of the reports findings and recommendations with specific results from the south west cleanups, for more info visit Tangaroa’s website http://www.oceancare.org.au/site/

Statewide

• 77% of the debris collected was plastic.
• The main identifiable category of items fell into the Individual Consumption range, which includes food and drink packaging and cigarettes. 34% of items collected were within this category.
• 46% was litter from local origins while the remaining 54% had a non local origin such as shipping and oceanic circulation.
• Plastic resin pellets were collected in the mid west and thousands were observed on several south coast beaches, far from their perceived source in Perth. Heavy swells and currents are thought to have distributed these hundreds of kilometres along the coast.
• The winner of the most unusual item was an ice hockey stick found at Moses Rock on the Capes coast, with an undetonated military phosphorous bomb found at Ocean Beach, Denmark!
• The annual cleanup is growing stronger every year with a 68% increase in volunteers and a 58% increase in the number of items collected.

South West

• 10 of the sites accounted for 43% of all the debris collected. Of these 10 sites, 7 were located within the SW:
• 1 Cowaramup Bay recorded the most items collected throughout the State with 4993 items
•  2 Binningup Beach- Bunbury 4507
•  3 Gallows Beach- Capes 4021
•  5 Buffalo Beach- Bunbury 3315
•  6 Hamelin Bay to Bobs Track- Capes 2902
•  7 Deepdene Beach- Capes 2459
•  8 3 Bears Beach- Capes 2253
• An estimated 500 metres of rope weighing 160kg was recovered at Mufflers on the Capes Coast

The main recommendations of the report focuses on:

• Introduction of national and state container deposit schemes similar to those introduced in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
• Implementing an ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ programme at industry sites within WA. This internationally recognised programme is aimed at promoting and identifying basic housekeeping practices which prevent plastic resin pellets being lost into the environment.
• State Government directives to land managers of recreational fishing sites as well as manufacturers of recreational fishing equipment, to institute practices and measures aimed at reducing debris associated with recreational fishing.
• Incorporating Marine Debris prevention within planning processes at all levels of government and industry. By asking the question “will this activity produce marine debris or cause harm to the environment?” preventative measures can be taken.

The 2012 WA Marine debris cleanup will take place in October this year, for more information visit the Tangaroa Blue website http://www.oceancare.org.au/site/ or contact SWCC Coastal Facilitator Blair Darvill on 9755 3432.