Aussie senator calls for boycott of RI sandals

Aussie senator calls for boycott of RI sandals

SYDNEY (AFP): An Australian senator called yesterday for a national boycott of Indonesian rubber sandals after thousands of the discarded items washed up on a remote group of Australian islands in the Indian Ocean.

Senator Julian McGauran, a member of the ruling conservative coalition, alleged the Cocos and Keeling Islands were being inundated with discarded sandals, or thongs, which had been dumped into the ocean by Indonesian manufacturers.

"I've contacted the major stores who have those thongs on their shelves and the major environmental groups and called for a consumer boycott -- so I've spread the word and I would hope they all react," he said.

"The pristine image of the giant turtles on white sandy beaches shaded by tropical flora being swamped by hundreds of smelly old thongs is environmental vandalism," McGauran, a member of Australia's upper house, said.

The assistant shire clerk of the Cocos-Keeling Islands Shire Council, Norr Anthoney, said the thongs had been washing up on the islands' shores for years but the problem had been getting progressively worse.

"If you walk five to ten meters you can usually pick up yourself a pair. Last time we had a clean-up was last year, but by the time we collect them, the next day they are there again," he said.

McGauran, who visited the islands recently, alleged his investigations had revealed the thongs were coming from Indonesian-based exporters, who were dumping waste products into the ocean.

The senator alleged he had confirmed the source through the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) and the Australian Nature and Conservation Agency (ANCA).

But a DFAT spokesman said although the department had investigated the thongs -- marked with the Indonesian Swallow and Alba brands -- it had been unable to rule out the possibility they were manufactured under licence in another country.

McGauran said "all the evidence points to it being Indonesia ... Indonesia is a big thong maker, and there is no other land mass between it and the Cocos Islands."

"I hope our relations with Indonesia haven't become so delicate and manicured and sycophantic that we can't tell the truth -- and that is that Indonesia is treating us like a rubbish heap.

"Rising economies are all very good but there is always an environmental cost. Indonesia is not paying for their notoriously slack environmental laws -- we are," he said.

However, ANCA's Graeme Marshall said: "We are worried about all forms of pollution, but we place thongs fairly well down the list."

"Fishing lines and nets and plastic bags pose a much more significant danger to marine mammals and are of more concern to us than a few thongs," he said.

"Nets are synthetic and don't decompose very rapidly, but thongs break down fairly well and most of them ones that end up on the beach are a shadow of their former selves."

Marshall, who said ANCA also had not confirmed the source of the thongs, said the Cocos Islands' horseshoe-shaped geography meant they collected more than their fair share of rubbish.

The Cocos and Keeling Islands lie some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) northwest of Australia. They were handed over to Australia by the British in 1955 after being administered as part of Singapore, then a British colony.