Rubbish from as far away as Madagascar found washed up on Tasmanian beaches
Updated
Volunteers have returned to Hobart with almost 80,000 pieces of rubbish they collected from remote beaches of Tasmania's west coast.
Twenty-seven people spent eight nights at sea on a fleet of fishing boats going from beach to beach, from Low Rocky Point to the mouth of Port Davey, in an annual effort to clean up the beaches.
Some they visited are so remote they are not accessible by road, but their World Heritage listing does not protect them from rubbish.
Team leader Matt Dell said the volunteers picked up almost 80,000 pieces of rubbish this year.
"It was pretty rough," he said.
"We actually did quite well considering we were stuck in Port Davey for two days."
Last year the group collected 48,000 pieces of garbage, this year they collected almost that much in a single day.
Mr Dell said there was a certain technique required to make a difference to the beach.
"Unless you are looking very hard you would not see any rubbish," he said.
"We leave behind pieces of plastic about the size of a grain of rice, it's just not possible to get all of those.
"As we've been visiting these beaches through the years we're slowly willowing out that big stuff and now all that's left is the big stuff that washed up between our visits and the small stuff below the sand."
This is the fourteenth year the volunteers have made their annual pilgrimage.
Most of the rubbish they find comes from commercial fishing including ropes and floats and pieces of net but more and more plastic items like drink bottles have been washing up.
"We found a roll of tape from Madagascar that's from a vanilla bean manufacturer," Mr Dell said.
"We find a bit of stuff from Africa washing around.
"We found a drift card from Durban [in South Africa], that's like a fish tag, oh and a set of dolls plastic shoes."
Topics: oceans-and-reefs, conservation, environment, tas
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