Picture this: you’re lounging on a beautiful beach, soaking up the sun and listening to the soothing sound of the waves. You run your hands through the warm sand, only to find a cigarette butt. Gross, right?
This disturbing scene is typical of coastal pollution in Australia. But fortunately our new research shows the problem is getting better, not worse. Over the past ten years, the amount of waste across Australian coastal cities has reduced by almost 40%. We’re also finding more places with no rubbish at all.
We surveyed for debris in and around six Australian urban areas between 2022 and 2024. Then we compared our results to previous surveys carried out a decade ago. We found less coastal pollution overall and reset a new baseline for further research.
Our study shows efforts to clean up Australia’s beaches have been working. These policies, practices and outreach campaigns have reduced the extent of pollution in coastal habitats near urban centres. But we can’t become complacent. There’s plenty of work still to be done.
One of the many beaches surveyed by CSIRO.TJ Lawson
What we did
In Australia, three-quarters of the rubbish on our coasts is plastic. Even cigarette butts are mainly made of plastic.
To tackle the pollution effectively, we need to understand where the waste is coming from and how it gets into the environment.
Research has shown much of the coastal debris comes from local inland areas. Poor waste management practices can result in debris eventually making its way through rivers to the coast and out to sea.
We focused on urban areas because high population density and industrial activity contributes to waste in the environment. We examined six areas across Australia:
Perth in Western Australia
Port Augusta in South Australia
Hobart in Tasmania
Newcastle in New South Wales
Sunshine Coast in Queensland
Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
These places represent a starting point for the national baseline. At each location we studied sites on the coast, along rivers and inland, within a 100 kilometre radius.
We inspected strips of land 2m wide. This involved two trained scientists standing in an upright position looking downward, slowly walking along a line surveying for debris items. Together they captured information about every piece of debris they came across, including the type of material and what it was originally used for (where possible).
What we found
On average, we found 0.15 items of debris per square metre of land surveyed. That’s roughly one piece of rubbish every five steps.
Plastic was the most common type of waste. But in many cases it was unclear what the item was originally used for. For example, fragments of hard plastic of unknown origin were found in a quarter of all surveyed areas.
Polystyrene fragments were the most common item overall (24% of all debris fragments). Other frequently encountered items included food wrappers or labels, cigarette butts, and hard plastic bottle caps or lids.
We found more waste near farms, industry and disadvantaged areas.
The types of waste varied among cities. For example, cigarette butts were the most prevalent items in Newcastle, Perth and the Sunshine Coast. But food wrappers and beverage cans were more prevalent in Port Augusta and Alice Springs, respectively.
Hobart had the highest occurrence of beverage bottles and bottle fragments.
The most common type of waste varied among cities.CSIRO
Targeting problem items
Identifying the different types of litter in the environment can help policymakers and waste managers target specific items and improve waste recovery.
Research has shown container deposit legislation, which enables people to take eligible beverage containers to a collection point for a refund, has reduced the number of beverage containers in the coastal environment by 40%. Hobart did not have a container deposit scheme in place at the time of our survey.
Plastic bag bans can reduce bag litter. Now polystyrene food service items are becoming increasingly targeted by policymakers.
Hobart had the highest occurrence of beverage bottles and bottle fragments.Caroline Bray
Making progress
When we compared our results to the previous survey from 2011-14 we found a 39% decrease in coastal debris. We also found 16% more areas where no debris was present.
Our results support previous research that found an ongoing trend towards less waste on Australian beaches.
We think our research demonstrates the effectiveness of improved waste management policies, campaigns such as the “Five R’s – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, then Recycle” – as well as clean-up efforts.
It’s likely that increased awareness is making a big dent in the problem. But reducing the production of plastic, and invoking changes further up the supply chain, would likely further help reduce mismanaged waste in the environment.
Implications for the future
Measuring and monitoring litter can inform policymaking and waste management. Our research serves as a benchmark for evaluating and informing future efforts to reduce plastic waste.
We are heartened by the findings. But continued effort is needed from people across government, industry and Australian communities. Everyone needs to address how we produce, use and dispose of plastic for a cleaner and healthier planet.
Australians are increasingly aware of the need to keep the coastal environment free of litter.Qamar Schuyler
As part of her role at CSIRO, Stephanie Brodie receives funding the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority.
Britta Denise Hardesty received funding for this work from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water. Shell Australia previously provided funding for this research via Earthwatch Australia for surveys and citizen science projects carried out between 2011 and 2014.
US President Donald Trump’s new trade war will not only send shockwaves through the global economy – it also upsets efforts to tackle the urgent issue of climate change.
Trump has announced a minimum 10% tariff to be slapped on all exports to the United States. A 34% duty applies to imports from China and a 20% rate to products from the European Union. Australia has been hit with the minimum 10% tariff.
The move has prompted fears of a global economic slowdown. This might seem like a positive for the climate, because greenhouse gas emissions are closely tied to economic growth.
However, in the long term, the trade war is bad news for global efforts to cut emissions. It is likely to lead to more energy-intensive goods produced in the US, and dampen international investment in renewable energy projects.
How does global trade affect emissions?
Traditionally, growth in the global economy leads to greater emissions from sources such as energy use in both manufacturing and transport. Conversely, emissions tend to fall in periods of economic decline.
Trade tensions damage the global economy. This was borne out in the tariff war between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, in 2018 and 2019.
Trump, in his first presidential term, imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of imports from China. In response, China introduced or increased tariffs on thousands of items from the US.
As a result, the International Monetary Fund estimated global gross domestic product (GDP) would fall by 0.8% in 2020. The extent of its true impact on GDP is difficult to determine due to the onset of COVID in the same year.
However, Trump’s tariff war is far broader this time around, and we can expect broadscale damage to global GDP.
In the short-term, any decline is likely to have a positive impact on emissions reduction. We saw this effect during the COVID-19 pandemic, when global production and trade fell.
But unfortunately, this effect won’t last forever.
Domestic production isn’t always a good thing
Every country consumes goods. And according to Trump’s trade plan, which aims to revive the US manufacturing base, the goods his nation requires will be produced domestically rather than being imported.
Unfortunately, this US production is likely to be inefficient in many cases. A central tenet of global trade is that nations focus on making goods where they have a competitive advantage – in other words, where they can manufacture the item more cheaply than other nations can. That includes making them using less energy, or creating fewer carbon emissions.
If the US insists on manufacturing everything it needs domestically, we can expect many of those goods to be more emissions-intensive than if they were imported.
Renewable energy slowdown?
Globally, investment in renewable energy has been growing. The US trade war jeopardises this growth.
Renewable energy spending is, in many cases, a long-term investment which may not produce an immediate economic reward. The logic is obvious: if we don’t invest in reducing emissions now, the economic costs in the future will be far worse.
However, the US tariffs create a new political imperative. Already, there are fears it may trigger a global economic recession and increase living costs around the world.
National governments are likely to become focused on protecting their own populace from these financial pressures. Business and industry will also become nervous about global economic conditions.
And the result? Both governments and the private sector may shy away from investments in renewable energy and other clean technologies, in favour of more immediate financial concerns.
The COVID experience provides a cautionary tale. The unstable economic outlook and higher interest rates meant banks were more cautious about financing some renewable energy projects.
And according to the International Energy Agency, small to medium-sized businesses became more reluctant to invest in renewable energy applications such as heat pumps and solar panels.
What’s more, the slowing in global trade during the pandemic meant the supply of components and materials vital to the energy transition was disrupted.
There are fears this disruption may be repeated following the US tariff move. For example, the duty on solar products from China to the US is expected to rise to 60%, just as demand for solar energy increases from US data centres and artificial intelligence use.
Few nations can afford to impose retaliatory tariffs on US imports.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, for example, said Australia would not follow suit, adding the move would be “a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth”.
China, however, can be expected to return fire. Already it has halted imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US for 40 days – a move attributed to trade tensions.
This may seem like good news for emissions reduction. However, China, like all other nations, needs energy. With less gas from the US, it may resort to burning more coal – which generates more CO? when burnt than gas.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responds to Trump’s tariff announcement.
And, with the right safeguards in place, global trade can help drive the clean energy transition. Global trade improves efficiency and innovation and technology. This is likely to benefit innovation in clean energy and energy efficiency.
Trump’s tariff war weakens global trade, and will slow the world’s progress towards decarbonisation. It is a most uncertain time – both for the world’s economy, and its climate.
Rakesh Gupta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Locals in renewable energy hotspots say they have been forced to create their own information groups to address concerns about the rapid energy transition and want the government to pitch in.
After trespassers vandalised Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain a round-the-clock surveillance system was installed to help protect the nationally significant heritage site.
