Thousands of plastic bottles have washed up in Kororoit Creek in Melbourne’s west, prompting calls for the state government to fast-track a container deposit scheme.
Starting in the Gisborne/Sunbury area, the creek winds through Melbourne’s west before flowing into Port Phillip Bay.
Friends of Lower Kororoit Creek president Geoff Mitchelmore said a fallen tree had trapped the mass of plastic rubbish at Altona North.
“The entire creek is covered in rubbish, which is thousands and thousands of plastic drinking bottles amongst other things,“ he said.
“There’s thousands of tonnes of it.“
Melbourne Water said GPS tracking and other research showed plastic bottles and polystyrene often ended up in waterways through stormwater drains from high-density populated sites such as shopping centres, as well as construction sites.
In 2018-19, Melbourne Water spent $4.75 million removing litter and debris.
It removed 1480 cubic metres of litter – more than half an Olympic swimming pool – from rivers, creeks and the drainage system.
Mr Mitchelmore said that if not for the tree falling, the bottles likely would have ended up in the phragmites near Cherry Lake at Altona.
“Probably millions of tonnes of that sort of material is all over that area in Altona,“ he said.
“That’s what it’s like, the whole place is just full of these bottles.
“It really does point to what the government is doing – why is it taking them so long to get this 10 cent deposit on these bottles, because that’s the solution to a lot of it.
“They’ve done it in other states, why not here in Victoria.“
The state government has announced that Victoria will introduce a container deposit scheme by 2022-23, which it expects will halve drink container litter in Victoria by 2030.
Mr Mitchelmore said accumulation of bottles in Altona North held up a mirror to society about where bottles ended up.
“Councils have installed many gross-pollutant traps to collect this type of rubbish but unfortunately they don’t work under major flooding conditions because the traps are bypassed and the debris goes straight into the creek,“ he said.
“So, all the rubbish that’s accumulated in the drains ends up in the creeks and rivers.
“They’ve been dropped in shopping centres and along roadways, swept into the gutters and then stormwater washes them into the creek.
“It’s not just Kororoit Creek – it’s everywhere. It’s a major issue for all over Victoria.“
Melbourne Water’s north west regional manager Jesse Barrett said the Altona North site had to be made safe before it could be cleaned up.
He said now that has been addressed, work has started on removing the rubbish.
“We suspect the rubbish came from sources further up in the catchment such as building sites and shopping centres and washed downstream from recent heavy rain.”
