Tackling Fishing Waste With New Rig Recycle Bins

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.

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Rubber Crumb Loss from GBR Play Areas

Many play areas have soft fall surfaces made of recycled rubber tyres applied as small pieces of crumb (1-5 mm in size). The use of rubber crumb in playgrounds and synthetic sports fields has been around for over a decade, although there has been a recent increase in investment in this product to try and deal with the more than 48 million tyres reaching end of life every year in Australia.

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2021 Cape York Trips Done and (Very) Dusted!

The final Cape York clean-up of the year is done and dusted, and what a massive one it was! In mid October, 20 Tangaroa Blue volunteers and staff headed up to the tip of Australia to clean-up the 5 Beaches Loop track with the Apudthama Rangers. 

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Life’s a beach: finding trends in marine debris across Australia.

A study led by UNSW Science has filtered and analysed 10 years of the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) Database and created a national map of patterns in marine debris.

The study found that almost half of all debris could be related to land-based sources (litter and dumping on land) and seven per cent to dumping at sea. But 42 per cent of debris could not be related definitively to a source due to the debris breaking down into smaller fragments, which the researchers say highlights the legacy of plastic left in our environment, continually fragmenting into smaller pieces until it is microplastics.

Read more “Life’s a beach: finding trends in marine debris across Australia.”

Rig Recycle is Here!

The Tangaroa Blue Foundation, as part of the ReefClean program, has launched the project Rig Recycle, enabling fishers to recycle their used, broken and unwanted tackle at participating Boating, Camping and Fishing (BF) stores. The project aims to reduce the amount of recreational fishing gear going into landfill through a first-of-its kind initiative for the fishing industry.

Read more “Rig Recycle is Here!”