A south-east Queensland plastics spill in which 40,000 small discs were flushed into the ocean could threaten birds and marine life for years to come, an expert says, amid criticism of CSIRO’s handling of the breach.
A CSIRO spokesperson confirmed on Thursday that 40 litres of plastics known as biomedia were accidentally discharged from the Bribie Island Research Centre on Monday afternoon, with many washing up on nearby Woorim beach.
The biomedia is about the size of an M&M, and is non-toxic and used in the filtration of water for aquaculture research, the spokesperson said. It was released accidentally into a wastewater well and discharged into the sea.
“The breach was addressed immediately to prevent the further release of biomedia and CSIRO staff have been involved in clean-up efforts on the beach.”
But Dr Shima Ziajahromi, an expert in the impact of microplastics in waterways, said the clean-up should not be limited to the beach and that the surface of the ocean should be skimmed.
“There’s a lot that would have already transported further in the middle of the ocean because of the winds and currents,” she said.
Ziajahromi said the spill was the worst she had heard of in Queensland – and would remain a danger to animals for a long time.
“It’s very hard to clean up the ocean. Plastic can remain in the water for thousands of years,” she said.
“As plastic breaks down, they get even more harmful because they will be available to the smaller organisms that can be mistaken for food … even zooplankton can ingest them.”
Darren Jew from the Bribie Island Environmental Protection Association (Biepa) said locals had been working tirelessly to clean up the plastic as turtle nesting season approaches.
“At low tide on Tuesday, I walked about 100m [on Woorim beach] and got maybe 50 pieces,” Jew said.
“Over the summer we will have critically endangered loggerhead turtles nesting on our beaches and the migratory shorebirds that are on their way back for the summer roosting period.”
The pieces of plastic are small enough that they could be mistaken for crabs by the shorebirds or swallowed by turtles, according to Jew.
“We know that seabirds ingest a lot of plastic out in the ocean, so our concern would be they’re going to suffer a similar fate in this instance,” he said.
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The Biepa president, Richard Ogden, said while it was inspiring to see up to 100 community members come together to clean the beach, they should have been informed sooner.
“I was really unhappy that it was community members who blew the whistle on this and that it was only because of people out on the beach seeing these little bits of plastic that we were alerted to it,” Ogden said.
The state MP for Pumicestone, Ali King, said she had been contacted by many locals angered by the spill.
“People are feeling really frustrated … they’ve been telling me they would like the CSIRO to be able to provide some assurances that nothing like this will happen again,” King said.
“When it comes to any plastic in the environment, people here on Bribie are very alive to the risks to wildlife and that is why they’ve found this event distressing.”
The CSIRO spokesperson said aquaculture research had been conducted at the site for 12 years without incident, and the organisation had well-established protocols in place around the environmental management of its facilities.
The organisation acted “immediately” to repair work to the pipe within an hour and took part in the clean-up, they said.
They did not confirm if CSIRO would undertake cleaning of the water surface but said it was “acting on advice on a range of mediation and clean up responses”.
“The biomedia beads are non-toxic and are a type of plastic that is highly stable and will stay intact while the clean-up is progressing,” the spokesperson said.
They said the amount of plastic released was “negligible” when compared with the polystyrene spill resulting from the Brisbane floods.
A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (Daf) said “a range of measures will be considered by the department and CSIRO to determine the most suitable method to prevent a recurrence.”