Marine pollution and biodiversity loss have been growing issues in Australia with tonnes of plastic and chemical waste being emptied into oceans and waterways each day.
Oceans provide oxygen and food, regulating the Earth’s weather and climate systems, as well as acting as the world’s largest carbon sink, absorbing significant portions of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Despite its crucial role in supporting human health, 130,000 tonnes of plastic leaks into marine ecosystems each year, causing biodiversity loss and irreparable damage to marine life, according to the Society for Biology Conservation.
Whilst plastic pollution along the Australian coast has decreased by 39 per cent in 2025, it is predicted to rise again with reports estimating that the amount of plastic will outweigh fish in oceans by 2050.
University of Wollongong biological sciences researcher Dr Katharina Peters said the impact of plastics on the environment was immense.
“There’s a lot of garbage that has accumulated in the environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution and that’s going to take a lot of work to restore,” Dr Peters said.
“Extinct species are never going to be brought back, but ecosystems do have a way of recovering if they’re allowed to. They might not recover to what they were before, but they can still function.”
Australia uses around 70 billion pieces of soft “scrunchable” plastics, including food wrappers each year. Thousands of tonnes end up in oceans, leaking chemicals and waste throughout marine ecosystems.
These impacts are visible in the deaths recorded in a report from the Worldwide Fund for nature in 2018, that has estimated about 100,000 marine mammals die each year from plastic pollution.
Marine mammals die from marine debris through ingestion or entanglement, mostly from plastic-based fishing gear.
Of the 123 marine mammal species to exist, 81 are known to have eaten or been entangled in some sort of plastic in the ocean.
However, Dr Peters said these effects go way beyond physical harm.
“There is a direct impact of marine pollution. Going beyond ingestion and entanglement, chemicals that leach off the plastic can be really bad for [sea creatures’] health and they’re really bad for humans as well,” she said.
“We don’t even know the complete range of effects these chemicals have but a lot of them have been linked to cancer and reduced fertility, which for species who have very slow lifecycles like some dolphins or whales who only start reproducing when they are 10 years old, they are heavily impacted.
“They actually have to survive that long first and then to add reduced fertility and extra diseases into the mix it’s huge.”
The health of oceans and marine ecosystems is integral for human health and both private households and organisations have been encouraged to limit usage of single-use plastics, to recycle and to look out for eco-friendly packaging.
Additional reporting by Marcus Stevanoski
