Caravans, fridges and pontoons make up just some of the tonnes of debris washing out of the swollen Hawkesbury River after the latest flood disaster – and much more is on its way.
A community clean-up effort is well underway on the New South Wales Central Coast, north of Sydney, where rubbish from up river has littered local waterways and beaches.
Patonga Beach, on the north bank of the Hawkesbury River, was the main focus for volunteers over the weekend.
Graham 'Jono' Johnston, from environmental group Clean4Shore, said since last week he had helped collect barge loads of debris, including seven large water tanks and cladding the size of refrigerated trucks or cool rooms.
"If it floats, it's on the river. If we don't get it, it's going seawards," he said.
Mr Johnston's biggest concern was the large amount of polystyrene floating around.
"It's a massive problem," he said.
"Once the aluminium cladding comes off, it just breaks up."
Flood-weary communities
The NSW Environment Protection Authority's (EPA) Martin Puddey said the clean-up of last year's flood had "merged into this one".
"It's quite devastating that this is happening again and the impact it's having on communities that are only just starting to recover," he said.
The EPA said its marine contractors had so far collected almost a dozen 12-tonne truckloads of flood debris from around Mooney Mooney.
"The volume of fridges is quite crazy," said Mr Puddey.
"The whackiest thing we've seen was a large polystyrene leg which looked like an alligator's leg or godzilla's arm."
All hands on deck
A reprieve from the recent severe weather will see local school students join the clean-up effort this week.
Teenagers from the Youth off the Streets organisation will work on the shores of Lake Macquarie around Gwandalan.
Brisbane Waters will be the focus for another group of local high school students, while others will return to Patonga.
The EPA warned there was a big task ahead.
"Certainly for the next six months and possibly more, we'll be working in rivers up and down the NSW coast," Mr Puddey said.
