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When Colleen Hughson spotted dozens of strange white plastic sticks strewn across a Warrnambool beach in 2017, she was on the brink of major brain surgery. But the sight of pollution on what she saw as sacred ground ignited a passion that would change her life.

 

“I thought, someone should do something about this,” Colleen recalls. “And then it hit me: why not me?”

 

The next day, she returned to Shelly Beach, bag in hand to collect as many as she could. Colleen soon discovered they were plastic cotton buds flushed from local bathrooms, swept through the sewerage system, and spewed into the Southern Ocean. Colleen gathered volunteers and evidence and started asking questions. The efforts paid off: Warrnambool’s sewage treatment plant upgraded its filtration systems, and in February 2023, the Victorian Government banned plastic-stemmed cotton buds.

 

 

 

 

And while Colleen was recovering from surgery to remove a benign brain tumour (a procedure that left her deaf in one ear) she dived even deeper into the world of marine waste.

 

“I became obsessed with plastic,” she says. “I couldn’t walk past it anymore.”

 

Born and raised in Warrnambool on the wild Shipwreck Coast, Colleen had returned to her hometown in the 2000s after years of travelling and working as a filmmaker and teacher and competing as a skateboarder.  Once on her mission to clean up the beaches, she initially alerting authorities to problems would lead to quick fixes.

 

“I was sadly naïve,” Colleen says. “I’d send photos of nurdles (plastic pellets), shipping debris, even space junk, and assume someone would act but I discovered it doesn’t work like that.”

 

Instead, it often takes dozens of emails and calls to get anyone to take responsibility.

In 2019, Colleen’s crew joined forces with BeachPatrol Australia as BP 3280-3284 and began documenting everything they collected through the LitterStopper app. The figures are staggering:

 

• 2018-2020: 958 clean-ups, 280551 items collected (4637.37 kg removed)
• 2021: 470 clean-ups, 114532 items collected (2371.31 kg removed)
• 2022: 583 clean-ups, 261090 items collected (2036 kg removed)
• 2023: 592 clean-ups, 147,809 items collected (2672 kg removed)
• 2024: 783 Clean-ups, 207,370 items collected (3750 kg removed)
• 2025 so far: 96 Clean-ups, 36760 items collected (1019 kg removed)

 

Nurdles are the most common item collected (more than 650,000), followed by hard plastic remnants (449,391), and commercial fishing ropes, nets and gear (54,781).

 

 

BeachPatrol is confident the three main sources of debris on the south-west coast are sewage and wastewater outfall, commercial fishing equipment, and international commercial ships dumping rubbish.

 

“There is a common belief that about 80 per cent of all plastics are washed into the ocean from land but our data shows this is not the case,” Colleen says. “It’s important to know the real sources of ocean plastics so we have the right strategies and policies in place to mitigate it.”

One of their major projects, the ‘Bottles Overboard’ initiative, found that 80% of 5,400 branded plastic items collected over seven years originated from Asia, strong evidence that much of the waste was coming from international shipping.

 

“Multi-trillion-dollar industries pollute the oceans, and volunteers are left to clean it up while governments do little to hold them accountable,” Colleen says.

 

But things are beginning to shift.

 

Dr Ross Headifen, co-founder of BeachPatrol Australia, says the Warrnambool team’s work is having a national impact. Their data was recently shared by the Victorian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) with the Heads of EPA Australia and New Zealand (HEPA).

 

 

“HEPA has since written to both the Australian Marine Safety Authority and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority,” Dr Headifen says. “We hope this will lead to real change in waste management practices across the shipping industry.”

 

Beach Patrol encourages its volunteers – and everybody who picks up litter - to use the LitterStopper app, which tracks up to 32 types of commonly littered items. Since 2022, the data has fed into the Victorian Government’s LitterWatch database, helping agencies assess and respond to the problem in real time.

 

Ross adds however that most marine debris go undocumented.

 

“We know the data that BeachPatrol 3280-3284 has collected, for instance, is only a small fraction of what is being washed up and collected off our beaches - most people who collect rubbish on their beach walks do not document what they collect,” he says.

 

“There is a view that we can solve the issue if individuals stop using single-use plastics such as straws and plastic bags. While this is important, it doesn’t address the marine debris issue. We need leadership and action from industry and government.

 

“Data turns the anecdotal into robust, objective science, demonstrates there is a problem, and is a useful tool for campaigning and lobbying.”

 

Colleen spends around 20 hours a week on clean-up and advocacy efforts, on top of running a video production business and crafting jewellery from the plastic she collects. 

 

“I could probably turn [the beach plastic jewellery] into a thriving business if I had the energy, but what’s more important? I’m always wondering what comes next in this life, and why we’re here. Trying to get our oceans cleaner feels like a more worthwhile way to spend my time.”

 

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