The plastic on West Vic beaches has crossed oceans to get here. Cleaning it up is only half the battle.

Every month, Colleen Hughson walks the same stretch of Warrnambool coastline to clean up the beach. 

But the plastic she can’t collect is part of a bigger problem.

❓What’s going on: As environmentalists push for solid national policy on who takes responsibility for plastic packaging produced in Australia, scientific studies are starting to uncover the link between microplastics in the ocean and climate change. 

It’s something groups like Beach Patrol 3280 have kept an eye on for years.

🗑️ Trash talk: Hughson, a self-proclaimed “serial beachcomber”, volunteers along Warrnambool and Port Fairy, removing rubbish from popular coastal spots, and has been involved in thousands of clean up days. 

While littering still plays a role in what washes up on our beaches, Hughson said most of the debris collected along the south west coast comes from the ocean.

• “Most of the stuff that we collect is from commercial fishing and shipping. Merchant shipping is massive,” she said. “So the cargo ships that are going past our coastline, deliberately dumping rubbish, that rubbish is washing ashore.”

🌊 A coastline that collects the world’s rubbish: Hughson explained the south west coast is what’s known as a “wash up zone”, an area where ocean currents naturally deposit marine debris from across the globe.

• “So not only are we dealing with local inputs and ships passing by our coastline and dumping rubbish, but we're also getting lots of debris, especially during winter months and when the south westerly winds really start blowing,” she said.

• “A lot of stuff is coming over from the Indian Ocean… we've got numerous items from as far away as South America, Antarctica.”

🔗 The link: While the environmental damage caused by plastic pollution is well known, scientists are now finding it may also be contributing to climate change.

Tara Jones, plastics and packaging program manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said plastic and climate change had historically been treated as separate issues, but research is increasingly showing they are closely linked.

🤷‍♀️ What happens? Jones said once plastic enters the ocean, it breaks down into microplastics which can interfere with plankton, a key part of the planet’s carbon cycle.

• “So we do know that it basically messes with the photosynthesis in phytoplankton, and that's at the very base of the food chain,” she said. “That impacts the whole system, and it does actually mean less carbon sinking to the bottom of the ocean.”

Research has also found that as plastic breaks down, it releases greenhouse gases.

“We found that the emissions from Australia's plastics consumption is equal to about 5.7 million cars on the road every single year,” Jones said.

❓Who should be responsible? There is currently a national push from environmental groups for the federal government to introduce extended producer responsibility for plastic packaging.

Jones said the policy would make companies responsible for the full life cycle of the packaging they produce.

• “At the moment… we bear the cost of waste management through our rates, and we bear the cost of cleaning up our plastic pollution on our beaches and in our streets.” 

• “What this extended producer responsibility is aiming to do is make the polluters pay.”

📝 What needs to change: Jones said recycling alone would not solve the plastic problem.

• “We need to go back to our three R’s that we all learnt in primary school - reduce, reuse, recycle - and they're in that order for a reason.”

• “The simplest way to put it is that the more plastic we use, the more plastic ends up in our environment,” she said.

For Hughson, the issue is both global and local.

While Beach Patrol volunteers continue to remove thousands of pieces of plastic from local beaches each year, clean-ups alone won’t stop the problem - because much of the plastic arriving on local beaches has travelled thousands of kilometres before it even arrives.