Forty-year-old fast-food packaging has been unearthed at Cronulla, giving new meaning to trash becoming somewhat of a 'treasure'.
While carrying out regular beach clean-ups, volunteers have discovered rather fascinating objects of the past.
Aside from the usual plastic straws and cotton tips, among the more interesting recent finds include McDonalds burger boxes from the 1980s and 90s, and soft drink cans from as far back as 1979.
It's an eye-opening revelation for Kurnell's Sarah-Jo and Brett Lobwein, the co-founders of SO SHIRE, an environmental conversation organisation that advocates for and aims to reduce single plastic use.
Joining the clean-up efforts with Cronulla Rotary and Gymea Tradies, the couple collected a sample bag of the polystyrene takeaway containers and cans, which appeared and were only visible after storms lashed the beaches, causing massive erosion.
The sand had somewhat 'mummified' the items, which are surprisingly largely in-tact, Mrs Lobwein said.
"We're calling it legacy litter," she said. "The polystyrene doesn't look like it's a day old - there's no deterioration, it's not dirty, it's just broken into smaller bits, and we found different colours for all the different burgers.
"I expected it to crumble in my hand but because they were in sand and not soil, it hasn't been exposed to UV, so it's like it's been fossilised."
She says the packaging was most likely buried, rather than washed ashore.
"We can presume it was left in the sand and became caught in the grass," she said. "Some of it could have come from previous storms, but what washes in, usually washes back out.
"Lots of the polystyrene was at the high tide mark but many of the cans were in the dunes. We think most of it came from The Alley, halfway between Wanda and North Cronulla, because you could park all the way down there."
Old chip packets - Burger Rings, Twisties and CC bags were also found, dating back to the same years.
"What was interesting is that some of the cans, which were dug right in, still had blue straws inside them. Those straws are possibly from the old Milk Bar or from a 1979 surf competition. It's definitely local litter," Mrs Lobwein said. "We know that McDonalds wasn't at Cronulla around then so the packaging was brought in - the closest one would have been Sylvania at the time."
There's a double-edged sword being brought to the fore - an obvious and ongoing environmental fear at the worrying durability of these 'historic' items, yet a nostalgic air of reminiscence of years gone by.
The marine scientist said with the plastics ban from November 1, this was yet more evidence as to the longevity of discarded litter.
"Looking at this stuff, 40 years later, we're still dealing with it," she said.
"It's very good proof as to why we have to ban it. The biggest thing for us is knowing it can be broken down into smaller pieces, and that means more surface area that's absorbed by toxins like heavy metals. That's the stuff we're worried about - it gets into the flesh of fish, and pollutes the ocean.
"At the same time, it's a time stamp...imagine the stories it could tell. We want to present this stuff at the Keep Australia Beautiful Congress next year, to gain an understanding into how long these things last.
"Our next clean-up is September 16, which is World Clean-up Day, so who knows what else we find."
