The remote Australian coast bearing the brunt of the plastic crisis

A remote beach on the north-east Arnhem Coast in the Northern Territory is at the front line of global plastic pollution.

The Yolngu people are grappling with tens of thousands of kilograms of consumer plastic and discarded fishing nets washing up on their beaches every year. Regular clean-up efforts have yielded the equivalent of 60 two-litre plastic milk bottles for every metre of coast.

Dhimurru rangers cleaning a remote beach on the north-east Arnhem Coast in the Northern Territory.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

“It’s very upsetting for our people,” said Yolngu man Kim Wunungmurra, 46. “For the wild animals in our sea – the fish, the turtles and the dugongs – it’s making life harder. It’s not helpful for our environment.”

The stretch of coastline managed by the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation is 10 to 15 hours’ drive from Katherine in the dry season and often impassable in the wet. But it is connected to the broader Asia Pacific region by sea currents.

Wunungmurra is one of 15 Dhimurru rangers who will be cleaning the beach this week, alongside about 15 volunteers from Sea Shepherd. They do this multiple times every dry season from May to October.

So far in 2024 they have collected 19,757 kilograms (19.8 tonnes) of marine debris, including 39 ghost nets and a 50-metre fishing line that took three weeks to dig out. In 2023 the rangers collected 40.2 tonnes over the year.

In 2022 they found 10.4 tonnes – 9.3 tonnes of consumer plastics and 1.1 tonnes of discarded fishing nets – in just two weeks along a 4.5-kilometre stretch of coastline. This was 30 per cent more than the rubbish collected over the same distance in 2018.

In 2023 the clean-up effort yielded more than 40 tonnes of plastic carried to the north-east Arnhem Coast by sea currents.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

Paul Ellis, marine debris and ghost net coordinator at Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation, said the language on the packaging and a barcode reader suggested most of the rubbish came from Indonesia.

The waste included discarded fishing gear, syringes, plastic bottles, thongs, bits of foam and an increasing amount of smaller fragments and microplastics.

A turtle trapped in a discarded fishing net that needed rescuing. Cleaning the beach makes it more likely that hawksbill and green turtles will climb up the sand to nest.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

It is nesting season for hawksbill and green turtles, Ellis said, and cleaning the beach made it more likely the creatures would climb up the sand to lay eggs.

“It’s devastating because it keeps washing up and it seems never-ending, but what keeps us going is that we see the benefit of cleaning the beaches,” Ellis said.

Paul Ellis, marine debris and ghost net coordinator with Dhimurru rangers, with the rescued turtle.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

“We’ll clean a section of beach and then the next morning we’ll wake up and we’ll see fresh turtle tracks in the clean sand, so that’s an inspiration to keep going.”

Cip Hamilton, plastics campaign manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society (ACMS), said it was important to recognise Australia’s role in plastic pollution – 145,000 tonnes of plastic leaks into the environment every year from domestic sources.

The Australian government has opened a consultation on options for plastic packaging reform to close at the end of October.

Halfway around the world, the state of California is suing ExxonMobil, claiming the oil giant deliberately misled the public for decades about the limitations of plastic recycling. A coalition of environmental groups including the Sierra Club has filed a similar lawsuit.

A remote beach scattered with marine debris – some clean-ups have yielded the equivalent of 60 two-litre milk bottles for every metre.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

California Attorney-General Rob Bonta said last Monday the lawsuit came after a nearly two-year investigation, including seeking information on Exxon’s promotion of its “advanced recycling” technology.

“Today’s lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil’s decades-long deception and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception,” Bonta said.

California is also suing the oil industry over allegedly misleading the public about climate change.

The debris includes consumer waste, mostly from Indonesia, and discarded fishing equipment.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

Exxon pushed back, arguing advanced recycling and similar solutions work and that the state failed to correct problems in its recycling system.

“Instead of suing us they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills,” a company spokesperson said.

Exxon was identified as the world’s largest producer of resins used for single-use plastics in a report published last year by the Minderoo Foundation, the philanthropic venture of Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.

Part of a 50-metre ghost net that took three weeks to dig out earlier this year.Credit: Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation

The Minderoo Foundation has also funded scientific research into how plastics harm human health.

California’s lawsuit comes ahead of a final round of global plastic treaty negotiations set to take place in Busan, South Korea, at the end of the year.

Countries are split over whether the treaty should call for caps on plastic production, a position opposed by Exxon and the global petrochemical industry. Australia is part of a so-called “coalition of high-ambition countries” pushing for tough action.

Hamilton from ACMS, who will attend the Busan talks with some of the Dhimurru rangers, said she would like to see the high-ambition coalition go further and push for production targets.

“We’re advocating for strong treaty text that tackles the root of the problem, and that’s our over-reliance and overconsumption of needless plastics,” Hamilton said.

with Reuters

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