Port Phillip Baykeeper

Clean Up Australia Day – tackling the unnatural disaster

Nino — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:54:39 +0000

Congratulations to Ian Kiernan on the 20th ‘Clean Up Australia Day’, with 7,084 sites registered in 2010. Congratulations also to Carmel Wallace for her stunning works (exhibited at 101 Collins Street, Melbourne) made from litter collected from the beach at Discovery Bay.

Carmel's 'colony' of rope collected on Discovery Bay beach

During the 2008-09 year, the Victorian EPA issued 19,465 litter infringement notices, around 90% involving cigarette butts tossed from vehicles, earning a $234 fine.

In March 2010, members of Transition Town Port Phillip collected and surveyed litter from St Kilda West Beach. Cigarette butts made up 39% of 816 items collected. Other common items were lolly wrappers and lolly sticks, bottle tops, cellophane and polystyrene packaging. Fifty-two pieces of broken (bottle) glass was found partially buried in the sand.

The good news was that very few plastic 6 pack holders (known to cause penguin deaths) were found. Has industry practices, government action, or public behaviour caused this improvement? Or perhaps a combination of these? This would make an interesting case study. One thing is for sure, it wouldn’t have happened without ordinary people taking the time to show they care for their local environment.

Bluebottles in the Bay – a sign of things to come?

Nino — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:45:39 +0000

The recent discovery of Bluebottle jellyfish on Portsea back beach and Bellarine front beach received a low key response in Melbourne mainstream media. Despite a fearful reputation that routinely causes closure of Queensland beaches, a web search revealed that the editors of ‘Adelaide Now’ seemed more interested.

Bluebottle pictured on Wollongong Beach by Fiona Wilkinson

Also known as ‘Stingers’ and ‘Portuguese Man o’ War’ (or Physalia physalis), these other-worldly creatures are an amazing partnership of four different co-existing organisms, each with a specialised function. Fiona Wilkinson’s pic above shows the Bluebottle ‘float’ which can sit up to 150mm above the ocean surface. What it doesn’t show is the fine tentacles, commonly 10m long, which trail below the surface and paralyse prey with their sting.

Bluebottles live on the ocean surface and are moved about by wind, tide and currents. In January 2010 Bluebottles were reported to be swarming near Queensland beaches; and by February they had been found as far south as Wynyard in Tasmania.

Carmel Wallace: marine messenger

Nino — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:04:43 +0000

Artists like Carmel Wallace are rarer than a message in a bottle on the shoreline! Port Phillip EcoCentre was honoured to host Carmel as Artist-in-Residence in July 2008. In just 4 weeks she collected an extraordinary array of litter from beaches in the Bay and the Yarra Bank below Westgate Bridge; and assembled them into a beautiful, but scary, wall-hanging called ‘An Octopus’s Garden’.

Carmel not only donated her time to create the work, She was happy to share her knowledge of the scourge of marine litter with EcoCentre visitors. ‘An Octopus’s Garden’ has remained a prized feature of the EcoCentre ever since; and was the centrepiece of the Coast Action Coastcare display at the 2010 Sustainable Living Festival. Thankyou Carmel for all you do!

Carmel’s latest exhibition, ‘Colony’ opens at ‘Gallery 101′ at 101 Collins Street, Melbourne at 6pm on Thursday February 25, 2010. RSVP to arts@gallery101.com.au