Plastic pollution on Australia’s beautiful, 34,000 km coastline, is down by 30%. This is thought to be a result of the work done by the local government to reduce litter in beach and coastal areas.
The scientists found the amount of plastic litter differed significantly between beaches in different Australian states and territories, with coastal sites in the Northern Territory, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria having significantly less plastic litter than beaches in New South Wales.
They also found significantly more litter at sites close to urban areas or that had experienced stronger onshore waves the day before the survey.
Beaches that had stronger onshore winds the day before the survey recorded less litter.
Some individual sites also showed an increase in the amount of litter, the highest increase recorded being 93%.
But overall, Hardesty said the results were positive and showed how quickly efforts to raise public awareness of plastic pollution had led to improvements.
This is a #WinForThePlanet 🙌🏼