10-tonne find on Aussie beach highlights devastating issue: 'Really hurting us'

Rangers at one of the most remote and untamed regions in the country are repeating their pleas to the federal government to assist in cleaning up mountains of plastic and rubbish they say continues to pile up "by the tonne" on their land.

Dhimurru Rangers from North East Arnhem Land, a vast wilderness area in the northeast corner of the Northern Territory, say they are inundated with human rubbish. South-easterly winds and tides are causing an accumulation of plastic fishing gear and plastic fragments in particular along the coast, with marine life also suffering as a result of the debris pile-up.

Rangers are now calling on Canberra to implement stronger penalties for plastic pollution and to become a member of the Global Ghost Gear initiative — the first global alliance of its kind dedicated to tackling the problem of ghost fishing gear [any discarded, lost, or abandoned, fishing gear in the marine environment].

Local communities saddened by mountains of marine rubbish

Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Wanga Mununggurritj, Senior Ranger with the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation, said she and assisting crew members have cleaned up everything from lighters, to clothing, to plastic bottles and fishing nets.

"Everything ranging from fishing nets, bottles, toothbrushes, rubber thongs, lighters, shampoo bottles, food packaging and bits of plastic fragments," she told Yahoo.

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"It's really hard work and impacting us Yolngu people seeing animals wrapped up in ghost nets. We see all the rubbish on the beaches and along the coast. Really hurting us and is frustrating. We've seen turtles wrapped up in nets, but they are also eating plastic. It's impacting all the marine animals."

In a two-week cleanup in October, 2022, Dhimurru Rangers in partnership with Sea Shepherd collected 10.4 tonnes of rubbish from just 4.5 kilometres of shoreline — including 9.3 tonnes of consumer plastics and waste — and 1.1 tonnes of discarded fishing nets.

Australian Marine Conservation Society Plastics Campaign Manager Cip Hamilton, who visited Canberra with the Dhimurru rangers last week, said urgent action is needed to cut plastic pollution across our oceans.

"There are estimated to be 170 trillion pieces of plastics floating in our oceans. Once in our oceans, plastic is challenging to recover," he told Yahoo News Australia. "Plastics do not break down, but break up into plastic fragments. These plastic fragments circulate throughout the oceans, strangling, starving, and harming wildlife. Growing research is also linking plastic pollution with impacts to human health.

“We’re pleased to support Dhimurru Rangers in travelling to Canberra and advocating for stronger action that will help heal Country.”

Australia's shocking problem with plastic

It's the equivalent of finding 60 two-litre plastic milk bottles per every metre of coast — 30 per cent more waste than was collected over the same distance in 2018. Every year in Australia, approximately 130,000 tonnes of plastic leaks into the marine environment.

Our use of plastic is continuing to increase and it's expected across the world it will double by 2040. By 2050, it is estimated that plastic in the oceans will outweigh fish, according to the Australian federal government. One million tonnes of the nation's annual plastic consumption is single-use, while 84 per cent of plastic is sent to landfill and a mere 13 per cent is recycled.

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