Lawn mower parts. Tennis Balls. Kid’s toys. Bottles. Polystyrene. Chip packets. Wallets and balloons. These are all items that have been collected by volunteers removing litter (or rubbish in the wrong place) from the Park’s sensitive environmental areas.
The war on litter is ongoing. Even though cleaning staff remove litter daily, and the Park has a range of litter intercepting devices, including booms on waterways and cages in various pits and drains that collect about 10 tonnes of material per year, vast amounts of rubbish still make their way into the environment, most of them plastic and designed for short term use even though they may take hundreds of years to break down.
With the equivalent of a truck of rubbish entering the oceans every minute, it is estimated that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight by 2050. To make matters worse, we now know that plastics are breaking down into microplastics, and turning up in our blood, in the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Many commonly littered items, such as balloons and associated fragments and strings (items found by CSIRO to be some of the most deadly to sea life), juice popper straws, unrecyclable coffee cups and lids, are not covered by existing bans on single-use items.
These litter can be deadly to wildlife. An Australian White Ibis was recently sighted with balloon string wrapped around both legs, while an Australian Darter was recently disentangled from a weighted throw toy wound around its bill.
Each item may seem small and insignificant on its own, but together they can have a massive impact on our environment. Litter have been found to reduce germination, remove available habitat, and kill wildlife through entanglement or ingestion causing gut blockage.
As the holiday season approaches, please help the environment by making your outdoor gathering a sustainable one. Look for durable, multi-use packaging, serving ware and decorations over single-use, disposable items, and look around your space before you leave to make sure it’s nice and clean for other people to enjoy!
