Thousands of items of rubbish from all around the city, much of it old plastic, have washed up one of Perth's most popular beaches.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 This is litter collected at Bathers Beach since February, and because it's located near
00:06 the mouth of the Swan River, it's come from people all over Perth.
00:09 The storms always are going to wash in more litter, and wash in litter that has come from
00:16 afar.
00:17 Like some of this stuff may have originated from near Fremantle, but a lot of it would
00:22 have travelled fair distances.
00:24 A lot of the rubbish has gone into drains and travelled along the river into the ocean.
00:29 Some of it's from vessels, and some of it dates back decades.
00:32 This black bottom, that looks like the black bottom of a Coke bottle.
00:37 We haven't had these.
00:39 These were popular in the 80s and 90s, but they got phased out in the 1990s.
00:45 And this one has obviously been in the ocean for a fair while.
00:48 You can see the fouling.
00:50 Sharp-eyed collectors also found plastic fragments known as nurdles, particularly dangerous to
00:55 marine life.
00:56 Dr Davies has been monitoring litter levels to determine whether bans on plastics are
01:00 making any difference.
01:01 Volunteers collect the rubbish and put it into a special seahorse bin.
01:05 I think the exciting part of being part of this project is knowing that it's actually
01:10 all being analysed, and in a little small way helping out to help find out what policies
01:16 are making a difference, where some of this plastic's coming from, and then being able
01:21 to work out more what we can all do about it.
01:23 The key to cleaning up the beach is to look for things that are out of the ordinary, like
01:27 this piece of plastic that looks like it's from a balloon release.
01:32 Regular visitor, artist Neil Kidd, says he's always picking up litter.
01:36 I keep getting told by my people who see me daily that it's looking really great, but
01:42 you really don't know what the storms are going to bring up next week, and you might
01:46 see the whole place covered in rubbish again.
01:48 Mr Kidd hopes the program could be expanded to other beaches across Perth.
01:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]