Through data collected in the Australian Marine Debris Initiative Database (AMDI) from local clean-ups, several items have been identified as marine debris repeat offenders along the Great Barrier Reef. From May to June of 2020, Tangaroa Blue held a series of five workshops to tackle some of these items.
The workshops were held as virtual workshops, in response to Covid-19 restrictions. In spite of the physical restrictions that all Australians were observing at the time, the workshops enabled individuals and communities to engage with all likely stakeholders and partners to create a strategy that would prevent this litter from entering the environment.
- the Lose ya Lid campaign focused on reducing coffee cup lids in the environment
- the Look After Your Tackle campaign encouraged recreational fishers to know their knots, recover lost tackle and line, reuse any tackle they find, and remove fishing line and tackle from the environment and bin it properly
- the Litter Hero campaign zeroed in on general litter found in public spaces.
- the Ditch the Flick campaign aimed to inform the community that cigarette butts are plastic and encourage them to responsibly dispose of their butt litter
- And the Don’t Dump on our Reef campaign focused on dog waste litter and aimed to engage, inform and change the behaviour of dog owners
The campaigns were released via social media, and on the ground through different community groups. The final reports for these workshops can be found at the following links:
ReefClean is funded by the Australian Government’s Reef Trust.
