Rig Recycle
Heidi

Tackling Fishing Waste With New Rig Recycle Bins

Heidi

The Rig Recycle concept was developed by Tangaroa Blue Foundation and is an initiative of ReefClean. It was developed to help overcome issues such as pollution from discarded fishing gear, while also reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill.

In an Australian first, it is now possible to recycle your unwanted fishing tackle at all Queensland BCF – Boating, Camping, Fishing stores through a new recycling pilot.

Tangaroa Blue Foundation in partnership with fishing conservation charity OzFish Unlimited  launched the program together with BCF who are opening their doors for recreational fishers to bring in their old, unwanted or recovered fishing tackle and dispose of it in purpose-built Rig Recycle bins.

Read more “Tackling Fishing Waste With New Rig Recycle Bins”

Emily Larkin

Ten years of citizen science data from the AMDI Database has informed a UNSW study

Emily Larkin

Plastic is 84 per cent of all rubbish found across Australian beaches, a UNSW-led study based on the data from the Australian Marine Debris Initiative database, has found.

“The AMDI Database contains entries of beach clean-ups across Australia, but the added value of this database is that volunteers take the time to categorise what they find, sorting and counting the amounts of plastic, glass, rubber, metal, paper and other items,” study lead author and PhD candidate, Jordan Gacutan from UNSW Science’s Centre for Marine Science and Innovation in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, says.

More than 2000 organisations and 150,000 citizen scientists have participated in the Australian Marine Debris Initiative by sorting and tallying up marine debris they have collected since it was set up by the not-for-profit Tangaroa Blue Foundation in 2004.

“We can combine this rich data over space and time to get patterns of the marine debris and plastic problem across Australia.

“This study shows, with unprecedented resolution, the variation in debris items both regionally and across Australia.”

Study co-author and Dean of UNSW Science, Professor Emma Johnston, says very few environmental stresses are able to be measured on a national scale.

Read more about the study here.

Access the full article here.