The amount of litter and waste Sydney Harbour garbage collectors pick up each year has plummeted to the lowest level in more than a decade after NSW Maritime suspended a long-running clean-up program that used prisoners on periodic detention.
The environmental services team, which clears debris ranging from plastic drink bottles to fallen trees from more than 5000 hectares of waterways, collected just 2284 cubic metres of waste last financial year, almost 500 cubic metres less than the year before, NSW Maritime’s latest annual report reveals.
”One can draw the conclusion that there would be more litter in the harbour,” said Peter McLean, the NSW chief executive of Keep Australia Beautiful. ”I hate to see programs like this not continue in some form. It would certainly be very detrimental. We have millions of people living in that catchment.”
Research indicated it was likely that since the end of the drought more rain has meant more litter washed into waterways, he said.
Most of the man-made refuse consists of food and drink packaging dropped on streets and swept into the harbour through stormwater drains, a NSW Maritime spokeswoman said.
While the fall was partly caused by Maritime’s environmental service losing its flagship vessel for more than six months as a replacement was built, it also followed a decision in December 2010 to stop using detainees provided by the Department of Corrective Services for the foreshore clean-up, she said.
Minimal risk detainees began working with government waterways cleaners 17 years ago and the program has contributed between 12 and 28 per cent of the volume of waste collected every year up to 2008-09, official figures show.
However, the program was suspended when the Department of Corrective Services began to phase out its periodic detention program last October, according to NSW Maritime.
The Herald understands that staff were unwilling to work with higher-risk detainees receiving intensive correction orders, which have replaced periodic detention.
The detainees’ assistance was hailed as a success in previous years, as NSW Maritime crews worked to remove boating hazards and rubbish from Sydney Harbour and the navigable waters of the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers over a combined foreshore length of 270 kilometres.
Four minimal risk detainees worked three times a week with government staff to clear debris in areas inaccessible to boats, such as mangrove swamps, the NSW Maritime spokeswoman said.
The agency expects to restart the program using volunteers provided by a non-government organisation in the first quarter of next year, another spokesman said.
Mr McLean said volunteers were difficult to attract. He warned that the loss of extra assistance with garbage collection coincides with the NSW government setting a target in its new state plan of achieving the lowest litter count per capita in Australia by 2016.
