AKA trash vortexes, these accumulation zones for human material waste obviously affects marine life in many frightening ways.... If you think it's easy to 'look the other way' while marine life suffers deformity and death....consider the way plastics break down into toxin absorbing 'nurdles'. These highly toxic man-made krill like particles are ingested by feeders from top to bottom -infecting the entire food chain from sand worms to sharks and YOU.

We must consciously begin to reduce our output and impact. How much food do you buy comes with plastic packaging? Do you use plastic bags? Shipping containers fall off ships regularly all around the world...do you buy local or imported goods? How can we get companies to change the packaging materials they use? Seek alternatives and tell your friends....

"In Australia around 1 million tonnes of plastic materials are produced each year and a further 587,000 tonnes are imported. Packaging is the largest market for plastics, accounting for over a third of the consumption of raw plastic materials – Australians use 6 billion plastic bags every year!

Plastic packaging provides excellent protection for the product, it is cheap to manufacture and seems to last forever. Lasting forever, however, is proving to be a major environmental problem. Another problem is that traditional plastics are manufactured from non-renewable resources – oil, coal and natural gas." (Source: NOVA Science in the News. Making Packaging Greener: Biodegradable Plastics. Published by the Australian Academy of Science)

- S. Innes

Thursday, September 18, 2008

What Can We Do?

Remember that stormwater drains flow straight to our waterways. Don't throw any litter in the street or gutter because it might end up in the ocean or on the beach. Stormwater drains flow straight to our waterways.

If you go fishing, make sure you take all your rubbish home with you. That means all your bait bags and lunch wrappers and cans as well as any snagged line and worn-out gear like old nets.

Don't wash your car or do a grease and oil change on the road or driveway because the detergent and oil will wash down the stormwater drain and flow into the ocean untreated, poisoning marine animals and plants.

Create less rubbish in the first place. Don't buy products that are 'overpackaged' -wrapped in individual packs or several layers of plastic. Buy products in biodegradable packaging. Re-use your plastic shopping bags, or take cloth ones to the shops.

Tell your friends and family - or anyone you see littering - about the dangers of rubbish to marine animals and encourage them to do the right thing with litter.

If you see a stranded or injured marine mammal, bird or fish, report it and tell us about any dead animals too.

(Australian contacts about injured marine life are difficult to find, not all have been confirmed, websites are linked)
Victoria 1300 94535 (1300 WILDLIFE)
New South Wales 1300 094 737 (1300 WIRES)
Western Australia (See1300 WIRES ???)
Tasmania 0427 942 537 (0427 WHALES) If a seal, dolphin or whale is washed ashore
South Australia 1800 065 522 (Pollution reporting is 131 555)

Join a Coastcare group. As part of a team you can do even more to look after your coastline. Plenty of environmental projects need to be done. The more people helping the more can be achieved.

(There are around 2000 Coastcare groups around Australia. If you're looking to volunteer, visit http://www.coastcare.com.au/ )
(Sources: Coastcare. Queensland Govt. Environment and Resource Management, Beach and Ocean Litter: What You Can Do. Marine Debris and Litter Coastcare factsheet undated. Tropical Topics - An interpretative newsletter for tour operators Department of Environment . Our Sea, Our Future: Major findings of the State of the Marine Environment Report for Australia Compiled by Leon P. Zann of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for Department of Environment, Sport and Territories, Canberra 1995.)


Actions you can take at home, when fishing or boating, provided by the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation. Google this title for an inclusive PDF of all 50.

 "Listen up kids, were leavin the 'burgs
and headin for the trash islands.
It's a bit warmer,
but land grows as fast as ours shrinks..."


 Don't Buy or Drink Bottled Water

Tapped is a documentary which 'examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution and our reliance on oil.' [View Online]

Tapped presents information about the unethical activities of corporations engaging in the rush for 'blue gold' (such as Nestle, Coke and Pepsi) and the effects on community's where they acquire water. It addresses the way their advertising leads the public to believe bottled water is 'cleaner', 'purer' and 'healthier' for you and that tap water is somehow dirtier despite [00:51:00] the failure of self regulated industries to regularly test the quality of their bottled water (for previously exposed contaminants such as bacteria, arsenic, toluene, styrene DNOP (di-n-octylphthalate) and BPA (bisfenol-A)) as regularly as municipal/tap water is tested. The high rates of cancer and birth defects amoung residents living in the polluted vicinities of plastic bottle manufacturing sites is revealed and the pollution incurred by our environment after we have used the product...including beaches where coral, shells and rock have been replaced by layers of plastic. In specific relation to this site this documentary features [01:00:00] footage of the accumulation of plastic in the North Pacific Gyre, the  Eastern Garbage Patch - a phenomenon that is repeated in the North and South Atlantic, the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

A bottle bill, or container deposit law, requires a refundable deposit on beverage containers to ensure that the containers are returned for recycling. In Australia, South Australia was the first state to enact a bottle bill/container deposit legislation in 1975. The Northern Territory enacted a bottle bill and ban on single-use plastic bags in 2011.
For more information on the benefits of bottle bills as well as current and proposed laws around the world visit The Bottle Resource Guide and build your case for a deposit law in your state legislature with a Bottle Bill Toolkit.

[00:55:00] If all bottles are recyclable and not all of them are being recycled where do they go?

With consideration of the effects on peoples health and our environment, I feel it would be better to not purchase plastic drinking water bottles at all. Why financially support such unethical industries? A (BPA free) re-usable drinking water bottle for drinking water on-the-go is an ideal option.