by Spencer Shaw
To celebrate the single use plastic bag ban, this is an update of an article I wrote in 2006. However, looking back on the changes that have occurred over the last 12 years, I’m far from sure there much to celebrate yet…
At last we have seen the removal of the single use plastic shopping bag from our shops and although a terribly traumatic time for some, it’s a tiny step in the right direction. However, it just takes a trip to the beach to be reminded of how far we have to go to fix the plastic problem, that we have created in the mere blink of any eye. Bribie Island was my home for my teenage years and being the greenie that I was, I found it very easy place to leave behind as it was clearly going backward environmentally and thirty years later its easy to see things have gone from bad to worse particularly for the wildlife.
For millions of years sand has drifted northward along the coast of Northern New South Wales and into South East Queensland. This sand has given rise to the beautiful beaches of this region, the islands of Moreton Bay and Fraser Island – the largest sand island in the world.
Long before these islands and these beaches existed or the rivers that eroded the sand were formed, turtles roamed the oceans. These beautiful creatures have survived and evolved over 100’s of millions of years. They have been around long enough to see land masses form and again disappear under the timeless forces of the ocean.
But in the blink of an eye in geological time a threat appears in the oceans that closely resembles one of their food sources jelly fish – the clear plastic bag. Our oceans are littered with them – literally. It doesn’t take long on a walk along our beautiful sandy beaches to find the carcass of a recently dead green turtle (Chelonia mydas), this particular magnificent beast was over 1.5metres in length – its bowel blocked by a valueless item of convenience to the fisherman or consumer – plastic bags.
Mainstream Australia may cringe at the thought of hunting and eating the poor turtle as barbaric by the indigenous landholders, and yet at least 60,000 years of hunting could not reduce the turtle population like 50 years (or less) of carelessly discarded plastic bags and the diseases that fester in the now polluted waters of the bay.
Out on the mud flats and sand bars of Moreton Bay, birds who have travelled half way across the world on a 12,000km trip from Siberia or Alaska to enjoy a seasonal harvest of the bounty of our bay and have done so for millions of years. A trip to Toorbul on the mainland side of the Pumicestone Passage or Buckley’s Hole on Bribie Island are great vantage points from which to view such migratory visitors as the Bar Tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica), the Common Green Shank (Tringa nebularia) and a host of other migratory birds. Hundreds, if not thousands, of birds can been seen at times, but due to humans now competing for their food resources (to bait the hook of the recreational fisherman) and the pollution of the mud flats that are the homes of their food sources, their migratory trips must become just that little bit harder. Look out into the flocks of birds on the mud flats and you will also see at least one in ten birds hopping on one leg, not to give the other leg a rest but because a foot or leg is missing. They are victims of the convenience of nylon fishing line. Nylon fishing line is cheap, durable and should be either banned or at least cost so much that you wouldn’t consider throwing it away. How could I suggest such a thing, I hear you say? Why would I deprive the children of the bay the opportunity to cast a line and enjoy catching a fish? No recreational activity should cost that much. It’s a true reflection of the lack of empathy that many Australians have for their country that 99.9% of the population don’t even know the names of the animals whose lives the impact of their plastic bags or fishing lines have such dramatic impact upon, let alone consider it an issue worthy of addressing! When will the worthless plastic bag choke the last turtle in Moreton Bay? When will the migratory birds no longer make their great journey through lack of food or injury?
We must reduce our ecological imprint, we must come to terms with the country that we now live in. If we continue to insist on a lifestyle that causes harm to ecosystems that we are supposedly protecting, the future is neither bright for ourselves, or our amazing local flora and fauna.
