http://theconversation.com/ghostly-art-made-from-debris-that-menaces-marine-life-23992

6 March 2014, 4.27am GMT
Ghostly art, made from debris that menaces marine life

By Scott Mitchell, Australian Museum and Erik van Sebille

With more than half a million people participating in last Sunday?s
Clean Up Australia Day, it?s perhaps not surprising that some odd
objects came to light. Not all the rubbish was on land, and not all the
rubbish was what you might normally expect to find in the water.

In New South Wales, divers in the Hastings River removed shopping
trolleys, mobile phones and a scooter, while Tasmania?s Derwent River
yielded bicycles, car batteries and even furniture. It?s a reminder that
individual actions can have dramatic impacts underwater, especially when
we normally have no way of seeing it.

Nobody knows that better than the indigenous people who live on the Gulf
of Carpentaria and Torres Strait, the parts of Australia most affected
by drifting ghost nets. Lost or abandoned from fishing vessels, ghost
nets can be up to 6 kilometres long and are known to kill more than 200
species of marine animals and birds. They also damage culturally and
biologically significant reefs, and can be hazardous to the small boats
typically used by indigenous people.