Australian Marine Debris Initiative

46,000 individual pieces of plastic are estimated to float in every square mile of ocean. Six million tonnes of rubbish finds its way into the world’s oceans every year. Three times as much rubbish is dumped into the world’s oceans annually as the weight of fish caught.

Most people agree that this horrifying amount of marine debris is unsightly, but not everyone is aware of the huge impact that it has on our marine life and seabirds. 77 Australian marine species have been shown to be impacted by marine life, many of which are killed by this floating rubbish. This includes over twenty Australian endangered species including the Humpback and Blue Whales, Tristan Albatross and Loggerhead Turtles.

Marine debris can cause entanglement, getting caught around necks, flukes, flippers and fins. The plastics and ropes cannot stretch as the animal or bird grows which can cause painful infections, amputations, strangulation and ultimately death.

Even the smallest pieces of plastic and cigarette butts can have fatal results. Seabirds such as albatrosses can pick up these pieces, thinking they are food. They can then be regurgitated to feed their young chicks who cannot digest plastic. Other marine life, such as turtles, confuses items such as plastic bags as food. The ingestion of plastics can physically block the digestive system, causing pain, internal injuries, suppression of the immune and reproductive systems and death.

Once discarded into the environment, debris can take hundreds of years to degrade naturally. Plastic bottles can take up to 450 years and monofilament fishing line up to 600 years, the cigarette butt, up to 10 years. This gives the marine debris an opportunity to kill time and time again as it remains in the food chain forever.

To help save our unique marine life, seabirds and marine ecosystem, Tangaroa Blue Ocean Care Society and Surfrider Foundation Australia have launched the National Marine Debris Initiative, and over the coming months we’ve got events happening around the country!

With the help of CoastWest, Caring for our Country and Keep Australia Beautiful Council the following events are coming up, and you are invited to get involved! To celebrate the Great Northern Clean Up, a beach cleanup event will be held at Cape Kimberley in the Daintree, Far North QLD on the 12th September.

Volunteers are invited to meet at the beach access carpark at 9am. To register email heidi@oceancare.org.au or call 0410 166 684.

In its 6th year, the annual South West Beach Clean Up will take place in Western Australia over the weekend of October 9 & 10. Volunteers are invited to register a beach between Geraldton and Albany to clean up anytime over the weekend, contributing to this long term marine debris project. To date more than 350,000 pieces of debris have been removed through this project helping to protect our marine life and environment. To register email heidi@oceancare.org.au or download a registration form from www.oceancare.org.au .

And the latest location to join the project is the Surf Coast of Victoria. Over the next 12 months a Caring for Our Country Government Grant will enable beach clean up events and community activities to take place to engage community members in making a positive difference to the health of the local marine environment, with the goal of creating a long term monitoring project. Beach clean up activities will include data collection and analysis to look at what types of debris is impacting the Surf Coast, and then practical ways of reducing those items will be researched involving all stakeholders.

Everyone is invited to join in these events and projects; we also are interested in hearing from other coastal communities who may want to join the National Marine Debris Initiative. For more information email Heidi Taylor at heidi@oceancare.org.au

Thanks for your support in protecting our oceans!!

Contributed by Heidi Tait added 2010-08-26