The great Australian garbage map: 75% of beach rubbish made of plastic

Correo electrónico Imprimir
Guardian - Australians are battling against a tide of millions of pieces of discarded plastic debris at beach clean-up events all across the continent, according to two years of data analysed by Guardian Australia.
 
Some 2,651,613 pieces of debris were collected from beaches and recorded in a database during 2016 and 2017, with about three-quarters of items made from plastics.
 
“We know it’s bad and we don’t need any more data to tell us that we have a problem,” says Heidi Taylor, founder and managing director of charity Tangaroa Blue.
 
An assortment of plastic items are filling the bags and buckets of collectors, from plastic straws, bags and film to food containers, bottles, caps and drinking straws.
 
Many items have already broken apart into an almost uncountable number of smaller microplastic pieces.
 
Taylor says aside from their own records, a huge amount of material is also collected by volunteers, casual but conscientious beach walkers and local government staff.
 
Craig Macintyre, a director of Surfrider Foundation and its Sunshine Coast branch president, is in his tenth year involved in beach clean-ups.
 
“You walk up to the high tide line and you see all these really small pieces and in my time, those smaller pieces have got a lot worse. It’s turning into sludge.”
 
Tangaroa Blue Foundation gave Guardian Australia exclusive access to data for 2016 and 2017 from its huge Australian marine debris initiative database of beach clean-ups stretching back to 2004. Read more..