A Sunshine Coast beach advocacy group has called for a ban on polystyrene after volunteers cleaned up another occurrence of the environmental plague.
Beach Matters leader Rachel Bermingham said the group regularly fielded calls – at least eight to 10 in six months – about polystyrene on Sunshine Coast beaches.
Volunteers spent days cleaning up a polystyrene spill that stretched from the Alexandra Headland rock wall through to North Shore and up the Maroochy River to Chambers Island in November 2023.
More washed up at Buddina and between Dicky and Moffat beaches on February 20 and more is expected among the litter, plastics and broken pontoons likely to wash on to Sunshine Coast beaches following the deluge delivered by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred and flooding in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.
Ms Bermingham said the polystyrene ranged in size from small loose balls to pieces and slabs.
The main sources of polystyrene in the environment are bean bags, packaging and building sites, where the product is used under concrete slabs, although Ms Bermingham also pointed out it was used in pontoons.
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She called on the state government to ban the use of polystyrene.
“It should be banned straight away when there’s other things we can use, but they don’t really care about it,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing and Public Works said it regulated the use of polystyrene in building projects from a compliance and safety point of view only.
The spokesperson said polystyrene insulation was typically installed in roof cavities, external walls and cool rooms to improve energy efficiency performance but had been banned for use in external cladding since October 2019.
Single-use polystyrene takeaway food containers and cups, as well as food trays, are banned under state legislation administered by the Department of Environment.
The department has paused further expansion of its bans to allow for coordination across the country.
Volunteer Julie Delmore said she had been called out to polystyrene clean-ups “more times than I could count” and had spent “hundreds of hours” picking it up off beaches.
Ms Bermingham said the council’s system of sifting rubbish out of sand with a machine was not effective and volunteers had to remove it by hand or with vacuum cleaners to do it thoroughly.
“The council sends along its tractor but that crushes the polystyrene into the sand and the next big weather system uncovers it,” she said.
Ms Bermingham said the council inspected building sites but builders usually cleaned up when inspectors were in their area.
She said simply binning polystyrene was not enough, when the polystyrene could disperse into the environment when the bin was emptied.
“It’s why we have education, and the council has put some effort into polystyrene, but if you asked most people how to dispose of polystyrene so that it doesn’t end up in stormwater drains, 90 per cent of people wouldn’t know,” she said.
“That’s why we need a ban.”
