Plastic washed up on Castletown Beach. Photo: Facebook.
South coast beaches have been littered with plastics this winter and while it may have become more visible in recent weeks, experts suggest the problem is ever-present.
Gumboots, rope, combs, and bottle caps are among the items locals have found washed up on some of Esperance’s most pristine shorelines.
Some locals expressed anger on social media this month, sharing images of rubbish at Wharton Beach, Dunn Rocks, Hellfire Bay and Castletown Beach.
“Look what we collected off a small section of Wharton beach on Thursday. WHARTON BEACH! Voted one of the top beaches in the world!!” one commentator said.
“I could not believe how much plastic and micro plastic had washed up there. Made me feel sick to be a human. Sorry to be a harbinger of doom, but surely we can do better?”
Michelle Crisp, founder of Esperance ocean cleanup group, the 10 Mile Collection, said she had noticed a spike in rubbish at West Beach too.
“I believe some of it was historic plastic being uncovered by erosion of the dunes,” Ms Crisp said.
Albany-based plastics expert Dr Harriet Paterson studies plastic pollution in ocean environments.
She said winter conditions and strong storms moved polluted surface water onshore.
“There’s a number of oceanographic things that happen at this time of year… the Leeuwin current has got stronger but the main thing for the plastics down here in my opinion is we’ve switched from the easterly winds to the south-westerly winds,” Dr Paterson said.
“When we have easterlies blowing it moves surface water offshore and when it swings around to the southwest it’s moving the surface water onshore so basically we just get all the stuff that is offshore blown onshore.
“We have easterlies during the summer and we still get plastic on the beach, we just don’t get as much.”
Dr Paterson said the population around Esperance was too small to be generating most of the plastic pollution, though she said in most cases it was difficult to discern the exact source.
“If you find something for example with Chinese writing on it, with no fowling – so no barnacles – it probably came off a ship, but other than that the stuff is too broken down to know where it came from,” she said.
Plastic pollution on Australia’s coastlines has fallen by more than a third in the last decade, according to a CSIRO study published earlier this year.
But senior researcher Dr Denise Hardesty said three-quarters of the rubbish on Australian beaches was plastic.
The most recent data from 2021 showed Australia ranked seventh in the world for its plastic reduction.
This month Australia made further commitments to end its plastic problem by signing the “Nice Wake-up Call” declaration for a global plastics treaty.
Dr Paterson said reducing plastic pollution can start at home by purchasing better quality commodities and through beach cleanups.
“For those who want to go and clean the beaches that’s fantastic, but we can plan,” she said.
“Instead of saying we’ll do it every three months, why not have three beach cleans in succession in June and July, depending on what the weather’s doing?
“We know that when the weather changes from our dominant easterlies down to our southwest, this stuff is going to come ashore — so let’s coincide beach cleanup efforts with the change in the weather.”
