Grey ball-shaped debris found washed up along shore will be tested by Environment Protection Authority, local council says
Nine of Sydney’s northern beaches have been closed after ball-shaped debris washed ashore.
The Northern Beaches council on Tuesday advised beachgoers to avoid Manly, Dee Why, Long Reef, Queenscliff, Freshwater, North and South Curl Curl, North Steyne and North Narrabeen beaches until further notice.
In a post on Facebook, the council said it was working with the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to clean up the balls and send them for testing after the regulator alerted it to the debris.
Most of the samples identified were marble-sized, although a few were larger. They were white or grey in colour, the council said.
Northern beaches map
A spokesperson for Sydney Water described the debris as “grease balls”.
They said they were working with the EPA to investigate the cause.
The spokesperson said: “Sydney Water can confirm there have been no issues with the normal operations of the Warriewood, North Head, Bondi, Malabar, and Cronulla Water Resource Recovery plants”.
“We comply with our licences as set by the NSW EPA and only discharge compliant wastewater during normal operations,” they said.
The Northern Beaches mayor, Sue Heins, said the balls “could be anything”.
“We don’t know at the moment what it is and that makes it even more concerning,” she said on Tuesday.
“There’s something that’s obviously leaking or dropping or whatever and floating out there and being tossed around. But who’s actually dropped it or lost it or leaked it is something none of us know.”
The discovery of the balls on the northern beaches comes after thousands of pieces of spherical debris washed up on several eastern suburbs beaches including Bondi, Bronte, Coogee and Tamarama in October last year, forcing their temporary closure.
Those mystery balls were initially widely reported to be “tar balls” comprising crude oil until testing coordinated with the EPA revealed they were consistent with human-generated waste – or “likely lumps of fatberg”, according to experts.
Guardian Australia reported the EPA had allegedly known for more than a week that the balls were consistent with human-generated waste before it made the information public as the US election results dominated headlines.
At the time, the EPA coordinated the release of a statement that revealed those balls comprised fatty acids, petroleum hydrocarbons and other organic and inorganic materials – including traces of drugs, hair, motor oil, food waste, animal matter and human faeces.
A Sydney Water spokesperson said “there have been no issues with the normal operations of the Bondi or Malabar wastewater treatment plants”.
“Sydney Water acknowledges the tar balls may have absorbed wastewater discharge, which was already present in the water while forming, however, they did not form as a result of our wastewater discharges,” it said at the time.
In early December, green, grey and black balls washed up on a beach in Kurnell, in Sydney’s south, with beachgoers warned to avoid the area.
The EPA said at the time its officers had collected samples for analysis which would be tested and compared to the other debris found on the eastern beaches. The regulator has not provided a public update on that testing.
The NSW Greens environment spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said on Tuesday: “Sydney Water has admitted that the human waste on beaches in Sydney’s east last year may have absorbed wastewater discharges indicating that our current treatment systems are not fit for purpose and the question remains – how much waste products are discharged by Sydney Water as part of their ‘normal operations’?”
The Greens said in December that the EPA didn’t appear “any closer” to discovering the source of the debris washing up on Sydney’s beaches.
“The EPA can’t explain the source of the human waste causing the fatbergs and it can’t assure the public that Sydney’s beaches are safe to use,” Higginson said in late 2024.
Fatbergs form in sewers from material that does not dissolve in water – including oil and grease – piling up and sticking together.
The EPA was contacted for comment on Tuesday.
