It’s man versus waste

FROM fridges to firefighting helmets, Matt Dell has seen it all on the shores of Tasmania’s remote South-West Coast.

Mr Dell is the coordinator of Team Clean’s annual expedition — a 10-day non-profit voyage dedicated to protecting Tasmania’s World Heritage beaches.

There are 33 volunteers and five boats taking part in the South West Marine Debris Cleanup expedition in the coming weeks.

It is the 19th expedition and Mr Dell, an environmental scientist who has been on every one, said the plastic pollution problem was getting worse.

“The first few times we went down we got all the big stuff, and over the last probably four years we’ve noticed almost an exponential increase in small broken-up bits of plastic,” Mr Dell said.

Last year, Team Clean removed 71,366 pieces of rubbish from the sand, dunes, coastal vegetation, rock pools and waterways of the World Heritage Area.

Every night, the team painstakingly counts and classifies a mountain of rubbish on deck.

“That’s the most tedious part of the whole trip, but probably the most important,” Mr Dell said.

On previous trips, Mr Dell said the team had found many items not generally associated with Tasmania’s remote SouthWest, including a firefighting helmet, antinerve gas serum, fridges, tyres, and lots of toys.

“You would be surprised what washes up,” he said.