Beach cleanups during the 2012 West Australian Beach Cleanup have been met with much enthusiasm from over 1,300 volunteers who scoured over 191 kilometres of coastline over 2,643 hours. This generated 65,305 individual items of debris equating to over 4 tonnes with plastics, again dominating all debris recovered; however, overall abundance of plastics was 46% less than reported in 2011. The overall distribution of debris recovered for 2012 was sourced from marine origins in 57% of cases and 43% from terrestrial sources. Of the eight broader locations sampled, the greatest number of recovered items was from West Coast sites with 20,650 individual items weighing 1,375.1 kilograms and cigarette butts and filters being the most abundant debris, up 54% on 2011. Three sites recorded plastics hard and solid as the dominant item (South Coast, 56% increase on 2011; Western South Coast, 23% less than 2011 and Capes Coast, 60% less than 2011). Cigarette butts and filters dominated three sites (Geographe Bay, 69% increase on 2011; West Coast and Gascoyne NW and Kimberley, 37% increase on 2011). The Mid-West Coast was dominated by plastic film remnants such as plastic shopping bag fragments, which showed a 76% increase on 2011 data. Indian Ocean Island territories were dominated by plastic drink bottles accounting for a 63% decrease for the same reporting in 2011.
Download the whole report 2012 WA Beach Clean Up Report.
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