---
title: “Super confronting” study reveals extent of ocean waste drifting in our oceans
description: A new study has revealed the staggering amounts of lost fishing gear left floating in our oceans, which includes 25 million pots and traps and 14 billion hooks, likely having deadly consequences for marine life.
---
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The Canopy is a weekday morning email newsletter provided by the team at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
# “Super confronting” study reveals extent of ocean waste drifting in our oceans
Monday, 17 October 2022
A new study by the CSIRO and University of Tasmania has revealed the staggering amounts of lost fishing gear left floating in our oceans, which includes 25 million pots and traps and 14 billion hooks. The gear was likely having deadly consequences for marine life, one of the study’s authors said.
Indigenous women from all over the world have learnt cultural burning practices from Australia as part of a unique firefighting program held in the United States. Two First Nations women from Queensland spent a fortnight camped in the Klamath Mountains with the Karuk people — one of the largest Indigenous tribes in California — who only recently gained back the right to practise cultural burning in the area.
And amid Australia’s breathtaking energy transition, investors have written off a half-a-billion-dollar investment in the country’s newest coal power station.
[New study reveals ‘staggering’ scale of lost fishing gear drifting in Earth’s oceans](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/16/new-study-reveals-staggering-scale-of-lost-fishing-gear-drifting-in-earths-oceans)
Enough commercial fishing line is left in the ocean each year to stretch to the moon and back, according to the most comprehensive study ever completed of lost fishing equipment.
[Australian First Nations women travel to US to exchange knowledge on cultural burning practices](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-15/indigenous-women-travel-united-states-cultural-burning-exchange/101533778)
Firefighters Chloe Swiney and Kylee Clubb, who work for Queensland's Rural Fire Service, travelled to the US to share their knowledge of prescribed burning — an age-old practice that involves intentionally setting fires to maintain the health of forests — with Native American women in the Californian mountain ranges
[Australia's newest coal power station Bluewaters strips fortunes amid rapid rise of renewable energy](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-15/australias-newest-coal-plant-upended-by-renewable-energy/101520070)
Less than a year after the Bluewaters power station came online, powerful investors pulled the plug on a half-a-billion-dollar investment amid Australia’s breathtaking energy transition. The extraordinary events at Bluewaters have been reverberating through the Australian energy landscape as everyone from governments and regulators to industry tries to keep up with the breathtaking pace of change.
[Australia's largest floating solar panel system set to save money and reduce emissions in Warrnambool](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-01/australias-largest-solar-array-warrnambool-hamilton/101488198)
Whether it's Coffs Harbour's Big Banana, Ballina's Big Prawn or the Big Pineapple in Nambour, there seems no better way to put a country town on the map than installing something huge. In south-west Victoria, the regional city of Warrnambool is planning to launch Australia's largest floating array of solar panels.
[Endangered bush stone-curlew falls in love with own reflection amid search for mate](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-14/endangered-bush-stone-curlew-falls-in-love-with-own-reflection/101532150)
An endangered bird has travelled hundreds of kilometres looking for love only to wind up spending its nights alone, staring at its own reflection.
[Two women charged after Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at Vincent van Gogh painting](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-15/two-women-charged-for-throwing-soup-at-van-gogh-painting/101540344)
Two women have been charged with criminal damage after climate change protesters threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting, police say.
[Most of Australia’s nuclear waste comes from Lucas Heights – should it stay there?](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/17/most-of-australias-nuclear-waste-comes-from-lucas-heights-should-it-stay-there)
For 40 years governments have pushed for a national radioactive waste storage facility, often claiming it is because currently waste is held at more than 100 sites across the nation. But the latest statistics show almost all of it is in that one facility.
[Australian research finds cost-effective way to recycle solar panels](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/16/australian-research-finds-cost-effective-way-to-recycle-solar-panels)
In a paper published by a team from the University of New South Wales last week, researchers outlined a process to collect and extract valuable materials from solar arrays to see if it was technically, economically and environmentally feasible.
[U.N.: The world needs early warning systems for climate-change-related disasters](https://au.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-early-warning-systems-united-nations-report-180457198.html)
As a result of climate change, the world is experiencing more severe disasters, such as extreme heat waves, storms and droughts, and many governments are not sufficiently prepared to get early warnings out to their residents, according to a report from the United Nations.
[Australia’s biggest network battery to be built at site of demolished coal power station](https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-biggest-network-battery-to-be-built-at-site-of-demolished-coal-power-station/)
The Waratah “super battery” – the massive storage facility that is to partially replace the country’s biggest coal generator – is to be built at the site of a now demolished coal power station.
[Coal](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/coal), [energy policy](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/energy-policy), [AGL](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/agl), [climate change](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/climate-change), [fossil fuel](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/fossil-fuel)
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