10 images Created 7 Jul 2021
Face masks floated all the way to Lord Howe Island
Face Masks washed onto the shores of remote Lord Howe Island whilst the island was in lockdown. The masks came from a cargo ship that lost 50 containers in rough seas south of Sydney while transiting from China to Melbourne. Lord Howe Island is a remote World Heritage listed island located 800 kilometres north-east of Sydney, the waters surrounding the island support the world’s southern-most tropical coral reef. Targeted beach clean-ups were undertaken by enthusiastic residents and debris collected from the island, and from beaches on Australia’s eastern coast, will form part of a maritime investigation. Regardless of the outcome, the full environmental impact of discarding a significant volume of waste into the open ocean will never be fully quantified.
