Buoys, floats, nets and massive fishing ropes are among the 50,000 pieces of garbage collected from beaches in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Two dozen environmentalists spent a fortnight combing beaches in the state’s rugged southwest for plastic flakes, rope fragments and other rubbish strewn along the shores.
Cleanup coordinator Matt Dell said the yearly clean-up covered new ground including toward Point Hibbs, where they found approximately 70 metres of black industrial fish feeding pipes.
“This involved the difficult task of getting these polluting pipes off the land and back onto the boats,” Dell said ahead of the expedition’s return to the Huon Valley on Feb. 25.
“These northern beaches contain significant amounts of larger debris—like buoys, floats, nets and very large industrial fishing ropes.
“We collected seven cubic metres of rubbish at Endeavour Bay, which was by volume very similar to the rubbish we collected during the first five cleanups of the southwestern beaches in the early 2000s.”
The group resorted to crawling across some of the worst littered beaches this week, finding 11,667 pieces in less than four hours in one day.
“Our southwest coast is home to some of the most beautiful and inaccessible beaches on the planet. But every single day, thousands of pieces of plastic wash up onto the sand, placing the ecological integrity of this extraordinary coastline at extreme risk,” Dell said.
Dell called on the Tasmanian government to more tightly regulate the use of industrial fishing materials.
“We are collecting significant amounts of rubbish from the long line and trawl fishery and as of now, from the industrial fish farming industry,” Dell said.
“One clear practical step forward is to follow the lead of South Australia and Western Australia and ban bait straps.”
Dell said the not-for-profit group, Team Clean, had removed about 760,000 pieces of rubbish from the World Heritage Area since 1999.
