CHAPTER 3

Home for a hermit crab

How does decades-old rubbish from New Zealand end up on a beach 5000km away? Stuff's Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor investigate how the world's rubbish has been accumulating on isolated Henderson Island at a rate of several thousand pieces of plastic every day.

“Stolen from Talley’s.”

The accusatory stamp on a washed-up fishing crate doesn't tell the full story.

It's more likely the pale-blue plastic tub was flung from a vessel far out to sea.

Four Talley’s tubs were found washed above the high-tide mark on Henderson Island, more than 5600km from the New Zealand company’s wharves at Port Nelson.

Another, from Christchurch-based supplier United Fisheries, warns: “unauthorised users will be prosecuted.”

"Stolen from Talley’s" is stamped on a washed up fishing crate, more than 5600km from the company’s base.

"Stolen from Talley’s" is stamped on a washed up fishing crate, more than 5600km from the company’s base.

Washed up on an uninhabited atoll, 200km from the nearest human settlement, its only users now will be the beach's hermit crabs. Often they climb into the hundreds of plastic containers littering the beach, looking to make a home. But they can't get out of the 'crabitat' and starve to death in the beating, hot sun. The decaying stench attracts other crabs, which also perish. One pesticide container upturned on the beach held the corpses of 500 creatures.

A crate from Cook Strait Seafoods lies battered and cracked from its long sea journey. The company was once a subsidiary of Ngāi Tahu, but doesn't seem to have operated since 2007.

A bin marked property of Sanford (South Island) Ltd, is turned upside down in a pile of coloured twine.

Further up the beach, a cracked orange crate marked Dallington Fish Supply lies half hidden in beach cabbage, not far from one which was once "property of Austro Seafoods." Both Christchurch companies folded in the late 1990s.

Dallington Fish Supply was based in Christchurch, but folded in the late 1990s.

Dallington Fish Supply was based in Christchurch, but folded in the late 1990s.

Talley’s general manager Leon Moore says the blue fish bins are used by inshore fishing vessels to case the fish in ice and transport them to factories in Timaru, Motueka and Westport. 

“We are very surprised to see four of our bins have washed up … [on Henderson Island], there has obviously been a natural collection point generated by the currents that has taken them over 5000km from New Zealand.”

Moore says the company takes marine pollution seriously and takes steps to ensure operations don’t leave a lasting impact. It recently funded a beach clean-up on Stewart Island. 

Sanford corporate communications manager Fiona Macmillan says the company is aiming to reduce 70 per of plastic from operations by 2025.

“We hate to lose our bins not just because they are expensive to replace but because we don’t want any waste from our operations to end up in the ocean,” she says. 

“We make every effort to hold onto them – our teams know they are a limited resource and they need them to do their jobs as they are used to store and transport fresh fish – but sometimes they can get lost. For example we know they have been stolen in the past or washed off the side of vessels in rough weather.”

Pitcairn Islander Jay Warren is dwarfed by an enormous pile of fishing buoys, collected along the beach.

Pitcairn Islander Jay Warren is dwarfed by an enormous pile of fishing buoys, collected along the beach.

The ghosts of dead fishing gear litter the beaches of Henderson Island. Of the six tonnes of garbage collected on a June science and conservation expedition, the beach clean-up team estimated 60 per cent appeared to be associated with industrial fishing.

Fishing buoys totalled around 40 per cent of the weight, and rope and nets made up 20 per cent. 

Around a dozen fish aggregation devices (FADs) were found washed up on the island’s East Beach, some coming to shore as the clean-up team worked.

They are rudimentary rafts with netting that drift as deep as 100 metres below the surface. A satellite-linked buoy then relays the location to a fishing vessel. 

Fishermen deploy FADs at sea because valuable catch, like tuna, shoal beneath them. They also boost the efficiency of purse seine vessels, which use enormous nets to encircle skipjack tuna.

But it's unsustainable fishing. As well as choking the ocean with huge pieces of debris, the FADs also attract other species like bigeye tuna, which is overfished in parts of the Pacific.

A dive team, accompanying the Henderson Island expedition, also cut free an enormous FAD wrapped around the island's pristine coral reef. The FAD was craned onto the expedition's support vessel. And because fishing is banned in the waters around the Pitcairn Island group, New Zealand police and the British government are now investigating.

Six of the beached FADs carried unique IDs and work is now underway to track the owners, who may be prosecuted. Successful cases are rare: the last reported was in 2010 when a Spanish firm was fined US$7.5m (NZ$11.1m) for deploying FADs in US waters.

Henderson Island lies in the world's third largest marine protected area - an 830,000 square kilometre 'no take zone.' Fishing, aside from some traditional, and non-commercial catch, is illegal, as is seafloor mining.

The Pitcairn Islanders are people of the ocean, most descended from eight mutineers and their Tahitian companions. They established a settlement at Adamstown in 1790 after Fletcher Christian rebelled against the Bounty’s captain William Bligh, and set him adrift.

The 4.4 square kilometre island rises vertically out of the ocean, battered by violent Pacific waves. Three other islands in the chain - Henderson, Ducie and Oeno - are uninhabited. All are administered by Britain.

In 2012, the Pitcairn Council voted to create a marine sanctuary, to protect what are some of the cleanest waters in the world. With the help of Pew Charitable Trusts, they secured the support of the UK Government for the measure.

The islands now provide a protected habitat for at least 1249 species of marine mammals, fish and seabirds. 

Policing the sanctuary is challenging, but navy patrols and satellite technologies mean there have been remarkably few incursions. 

But one thing the islanders are powerless to stop is wave after wave of plastic junk washing onto Henderson’s shores.

The trash is carried there on the powerful South Pacific Gyre. The island lies almost at the centre of the giant current, which moves anti-clockwise across the ocean.

It’s one of five confluences of currents that concentrate floating plastic. The North Pacific Gyre, between California and Japan, holds the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, drifting over an area three times the size of France.

It’s believed that most of the plastic that ends up on the atoll is from South America or lost from passing ships.

But the clean-up team found items from all corners of the globe. Spirits bottled in Japan, Scotland and Puerto Rico were found on the beach. A rubber boot manufactured in the Netherlands lay in the sand - and a hard hat had floated all the way from a building yard in the United States.

They picked up 25 items with barcodes and wording, which will be analysed for provenance.

Everyday household items covered the beach: laundry baskets, toilet seats, razors, toothbrushes and dozens of shoe laces. It was most sobering when the team found products they use regularly.

“It is really sad to see,” expedition leader Robin Shackell says. “And we've all done this. I recognise things that I use. 

“Now, I don't go flipping them into the ocean, but those are things that I use.”

Shackell is Pitcairn’s deputy governor, based at the British High Commission in Auckland.

An estimated 700,000 tons of fishing gear are abandoned in the oceans each year.

An estimated 700,000 tons of fishing gear are abandoned in the oceans each year.

“Pitcairn can't clear this up. They are 50 people who live 120 miles away [from Henderson]. 

“They live tough, hard lives themselves, really trying to eke out their existence on a daily basis, they work long hours.

“The thought that they would come across and do a beach clean up, it’s too much.” 

Islander Jay Warren has visited Henderson many times, including in March, preparing for the expedition. During the June clean-up, he spent two days threading the washed-up buoys onto rope, ready for removal from the island.

“It is a special place for us,” Warren says. “The amount of rubbish on there is terrible and there is a heck of a lot more than what it was in March.

“People just keep chucking rubbish into the sea and they don't know where it is going to end up. Unfortunately, it is on our beach at Henderson.”

UK-based recycling expert James Beard travelled more than 14,500 kilometres to clean up Henderson Island.

UK-based recycling expert James Beard travelled more than 14,500 kilometres to clean up Henderson Island.

The expedition followed strict scientific methods - weighing and counting on alternative days, meticulously recording data so it can later be sifted through and analysed by scientists.

One day, on a 600m stretch of beach, the team counted 909 bottle tops. The separation of the caps bothered recycling expert James Beard. What happened to the rest of the bottle?

“My guess at this point is that the PET [polyethylene terephthalate] is heavier than the plastic lids made of PP [polypropylene] or HDPE [high-density polyethylene] and they sink. 

“So, for every bottle top we are finding there is a bottle somewhere out in the ocean that has sunk to the bottom.”

Beard, who nursed a sprained ankle for much of the expedition, describes his “absolute lowest moment.” 

Plastic rubbish is often consumed by birds and wildlife, and turned into homes by the island’s hermit crabs.

Plastic rubbish is often consumed by birds and wildlife, and turned into homes by the island’s hermit crabs.

“I picked up a big rope the other day and ended up with thousands of little shards of plastic all over my arm. 

“Just seeing it fracture into lots of pieces, turning the beach green and then realising it's an example of what's happening all around us on Henderson. You go to pick something up and it just breaks apart and it makes you realise exactly how difficult the task is. It is impossible.”

Beard works for Valpak, a UK company which helps businesses reduce waste, and was heavily involved in planning the expedition. But he wasn’t prepared for what they found.

“When you walk through it you notice things that you don't notice on the photographs which is the hundreds and thousands of tiny little bits of plastic. It is quite overwhelming when you are actually in some of those highly contaminated areas.”

As well as being unsightly, the litter can be deadly to wildlife. Trinkets and single-use plastics are often found in the stomachs of dead sea birds and whales. Other marine creatures - like sharks, turtles and dolphins - become ensnared, disfigured and sometimes drown.

Plastics don’t break up, they break down, finally becoming microplastics, defined as less than 5mm in diameter, and nanoplastics (less than 0.001mm). These are ingested by tiny organisms like plankton, sending the particles up through the food chain.

Although the crew removed all visible junk, the bulk of the pollution was left disintegrating into the shoreline, with an estimated 2000 tiny items per square metre.

On the expedition, scientists Alex Bond and Jennifer Lavers measured soil temperature, moisture and other properties from five sites.

East Beach is a nesting site for green turtles, which lay their eggs deep in the sand.

This frail sea turtle hatchling didn’t survive.

This frail sea turtle hatchling didn’t survive.

A recent study from the University of Exeter, working in Cyprus, found microplastics may disrupt hatching success and alter the ratio of male and female hatchlings.

Oceanographer Simeon Archer-Rand, from Britain’s Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, spent long, lonely hours bobbing about on an inflatable raft searching for seabed litter.

Archer-Rand’s underwater camera captured 4000 images over 35 locations, and half-a-day’s worth of video footage. It will be scoured for pieces of junk to help understand how it moves on the tides around the island and how it is affecting marine life.

“Everyone is very excited about the data which has come back from the expedition, particularly the videos of the deeper coral reefs,” he says.

“The images of the beaches and the amount of litter has also shocked a lot of people. Henderson Island is so far detached from the everyday that most people expect it to be pristine and it is really shocking to see more litter on the East Beach of Henderson Island than we have on the beach outside our laboratory in the UK.”

He says that despite the rubbish, the coral reef systems appear to be “in good health.”

Divers Luke Hosty and Jon Slayer captured underwater footage of the island’s stunning coral reefs.

Divers Luke Hosty and Jon Slayer captured underwater footage of the island’s stunning coral reefs.

“Even with the amount of litter washing up on the coast, the reef systems on the lower slopes of the island appear to be in very good health and extend much further than previously thought,” Archer-Rand says.

“One of the surprising things … was the lack of litter on the seabed. It may be that we will find a larger amount when we analyse the video in closer detail but it does currently look like much of the larger items are not snagging on the seabed, are floating over the reefs and ending up on the beach.”

Archer-Rand also took samples from 24 spots on East Beach and back in his lab will coat the minuscule plastic particles - some as thin as a human hair - with a red stain that will make them visible under ultraviolet light, to allow for counting and sorting. 

But his research is not limited to plastic analysis. The images will also be used to create habitat maps and models which will then be given to the Pitcairn Islanders so they can best decide how to manage the marine environment and protect the seabed habitats.

“Every new dive is a new habitat,” Archer-Rand says. “You can pretty much say that when you put the camera down, probably no one else has seen that before because it is such an unstudied area. It is just so exciting.”

Steadying the raft, often in rough seas, while piloting an expensive remote camera using a laptop, is a juggling act. But for Archer-Rand, who’s worked in the Middle East, Africa, and South America, Henderson was a dream assignment. 

“Typically, we are working in areas where there are high human populations, so we are looking at the different activities they do and the impact. 

“Getting to islands like this doesn't happen very often, and being able to study unimpacted areas is quite a unique opportunity. 

“There is always a thrill being on the sea. You never know quite what it is going to throw up at you, I quite like that. There is just something quite exciting about it all the time.”

The wind and waves that brought plastic to the island, also mean the junk will stay there. At least for now.

Weather and swell patterns didn’t improve over the course of the expedition, and so the clean-up team was forced to leave it on the beach, neatly mustered.

It now sits in 13 collection stations, dragged over the high-tide mark and piled up in beach scrub. While the white sands are clear of junk, the neon orange sacks sit as an incongruous monument to our throwaway culture. 

The clean-up was physically demanding, and the team had to drag heavy sacks of rubbish above the tide line.

The clean-up was physically demanding, and the team had to drag heavy sacks of rubbish above the tide line.

Another 14 large pieces of plastic were deliberately left on the beach, so that four digital cameras can track what happens to them.

There are 22 large sacks of mixed rigid plastics - the products we use every day - and five of PET, which is more lightweight. Each bag was colour-coded, and geo-tagged with location and other data.

Distressingly, it’s expected the same volume of plastic will wash up on the beach within five years.

Marine conservationist Johnny Briggs finds a plastic drinking mug in the sand.

Marine conservationist Johnny Briggs finds a plastic drinking mug in the sand.

Mass production of plastics began in the 1950s and accelerated quickly. About 8.3b metric tons has been created to date. According to Britain’s Royal Statistical Society, a staggering 91 per cent of that isn’t recycled. An estimated eight million tonnes ends up in our oceans each year.

Modern society’s lust for cheap, disposable packaging continues. By 2050, we will be producing four times as much plastic as we are now. And on current trends, 40 per cent of that will be used only once.

Shackell and Howell are now looking at options to move the rest of the rubbish. One option is for Pitcairn Islanders to return when the weather improves, in the spring, and carry it off. The UK Government is considering buying a jet boat to help with the operation. The trash would then have to be shipped as cargo.

Another option - although improbable - is to enlist the help of a passing French or New Zealand navy vessel, equipped with a helicopter. 

The 1200 fishing buoys collected from the beach will be taken to Pitcairn Island and sliced in two, to use for hydroponic agriculture. 

Ultimately, the goal is to deliver the rest of the plastic to Costa Rica where it can be transformed into low-cost housing.

Conservationist Brett Howell drags a sackful of plastic into one the island’s limestone caves.

Conservationist Brett Howell drags a sackful of plastic into one the island’s limestone caves.

Howell has worked tirelessly to find a solution since he returned to the United States.

“If this isn't a wake-up call that we need to change our global supply chains [and] get to a circular economy, I don't know what is,” he says.

“This is inspirational to me. You can look at this as a positive or a negative. And I choose to see the positive and say, we can do so much better. We have so many opportunities to create markets, get these plastics back to where they ought to be and off this beach.”

Beard is not despondent about leaving the trash behind. 

“It is part of the story of the actual problem. If you can't physically take the plastic out of these places where it has accumulated then I think it speaks volumes for the actual scale of the problem that the world is facing.”

He says he will now change his own behaviour.

“I've noticed an awful lot of plastic toys. I have two young kids and my eyes are kind of attuned to see bits of plastic toys, probably so I don't step on them and hurt my feet. 

“So, my aim, I think when I get back will be to have a look at what I am buying for the kids and if it is cheap, and made out of plastic and not going to last then I probably won't buy it.

“One thing that's kind of brought home to me, is that we don't need a few people doing everything perfectly, we just need a lot of people making a few changes here and there which will make a real impact.”


Words: Andrea Vance

Visuals: Iain McGregor

Design & layout: Aaron Wood

Editor: John Hartevelt