Centuries Old Trash Buildup in Sydney Harbor

By Admin
Sydney Harbor, one of the world's most beautiful seaports, hides an ugly underbelly: a seabed blanked with garbage as old as 200 years. As a busy...

 

Sydney Harbor, one of the world's most beautiful seaports, hides an ugly underbelly: a seabed blanked with garbage as old as 200 years. As a busy coastal city, the loose garbage has long accumulated offshore—out of sight and out of mind to the average Australian.

Environmentalists say the waste causes a plethora of problems, including leaching toxic chemicals into seawater and harming local marine life. Fortunately, Australians are pulling together to alleviate some of the damage done. A coalition of local divers have begun volunteering their time to remove some of the mass amounts of trash from the harbor floor.

"The stuff on the bottom has been accumulating for 200 years, and it's only now we're really trying to pull it out in any sort of quantity," local diver Dave Thomas tells Australia's Seven News. "It's been out of sight and out of mind."

SEE OTHER TOP STORIES IN THE ENERGY DIGITAL CONTENT NETWORK

Plastic in the Ocean: What's the Solution?

Radioactive Japanese Tuna Found off California Coast

Read more in June's issue of Energy Digital: Energy Turns to SPACE

Eco Divers and the Two Hands Project are leading the effort, but it won't be easy. Picking up small debris will be a labor intensive job, while the rest will consist of removing larger objects such as old bicycles and bathtubs. The cleanup crews will cover some 12,000 acres of waterways and 170 miles of shoreline, where over 900 metric tons of garbage washes up every year.

Regardless of the amount of garbage the organizations pick up or the extent of time it will take them to make an impact, the progress is well worth the trouble from their point of view.

"Unless someone cleans it up, it could be there for years," Two Hands' Dean Cropp tells BBC. "It could be there for hundreds of years — doing damage the whole time."

 

DOWNLOAD THE ENERGY DIGITAL IPAD APP

Share

Featured Articles

Who is Greg Joiner, the new Head of Shell Energy?

Joiner will be formally be appointed as Shell Energy’s EVP on 1 April following a reshuffle of the division's top team

Watershed Workshop at Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero

Hosted on Day 1 of Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero, Watershed’s session was overflowing with ideas that apply to supply chain decarbonisation

Capgemini Invent Workshop at Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero

Explore how Capgemini Invent's workshop on Day 1 of Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero delved into climate adaptation & social sustainability for futureproofing

Energy Highlights from Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero

Sustainability

Sustainability LIVE: Leading ESG and Net Zero

Sustainability

International Women’s Day: Women in Energy with Julia Souder

Renewable Energy