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Two Sydney beaches still closed after mystery debris ‘grease balls’ washed ashore

2025-01-15 00:21

Sydney’s Northern Beaches council says it has reopened seven of the nine beaches that were closed to the public after marble-sized “grease balls” washed ashore.

Queenscliff, Freshwater, North Curl Curl, North Steyne and North Narrabeen beaches reopened on Wednesday morning, the day after they were closed after the discovery of the debris.

Dee Why and South Curl Curl beaches remained closed, the council said.

The council said the composition and source of the balls had not been determined but it had sent debris samples for testing.

A spokesperson for Sydney Water on Tuesday described the debris as “grease balls”.

The Northern Beaches mayor, Sue Heins, congratulated the council’s clean-up crews for getting the beaches ready to reopen quickly.

“We will continue to monitor the beaches’ condition, especially following the high tide this morning,” she said.

The council said decision to reopen the beaches was made on criteria provided by the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA).

Sydney Water on Tuesday said there had 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,” the spokesperson said.

They said they were working with the EPA to investigate where the balls came from.

Thousands of pieces of spherical debris washed up on many eastern suburbs beaches including Coogee and Bronte in October last year, forcing their temporary closure.

Those 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.

More ball-shaped debris washed up in Kiama in November, before green, grey and black balls washed up on Silver beach in Kurnell in Sydney’s south in early December.

The EPA on Tuesday said the balls that washed up on the eastern beaches were found to consist mostly of fatty acids and petroleum hydrocarbons.

But the regulator said testing could not “pinpoint a source” or identify what caused them to form, because “there was no source sample available for comparison”.

The EPA said analysis of the balls that washed up in Kiama found they had a similar composition to those that washed up on the eastern beaches and it was “still awaiting” the final results of the Kurnell debris.

It said the balls found on the northern beaches this week had a similar appearance to those found in the eastern beaches, and urged people not to touch them.

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