Abandoned fishing nets should be the enemy of a turtle hospital, but Townsville's Reef HQ Aquarium and Turtle Hospital has them underfoot.
The aquarium has installed carpet made from 100 per cent recycled plastics, including ghost nets removed from the ocean by fishermen in the Philippines and Cameroon under the Net-Works program.
Technical operations manager Sascha Thyer said the new carpet was part of the aquarium's commitment to sustainability.
"We are obviously very passionate about the environment," she said.
"Climate change affects the Great Barrier Reef, so we want to do everything we can to look after the reef and reduce waste and reduce pollution.
"Also, as a business we have to have cost recovery and we have to make sure we operate our business in a sustainable way."
The Net-Works program was established in 2012 by carpet maker Interface and the Zoological Society of London.
So far the program has given 1,500 families an income stream, and 142 tonnes of discarded fishing nets have been removed from the environment.
Ghost nets leave deadly legacy
Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been lost or abandoned by fishers and are drifting in the ocean or caught up on reefs or rocks.
Reef HQ curator Stephen Menzies said because most fishing nets were made of nylon or plastic, they did not break down for decades and their environmental impact was massive.
"It is a perpetual killer and it will continue to kill things and attract more animals to be killed," he said.
"Quite often they will come in with carcasses of animals entangled up in them, specifically turtles but also other animals, large sharks that come in to feed on the turtles then get trapped."
Mr Menzies said fishing line or tackle was the culprit in many of the cases seen at the turtle hospital.
"The turtles swallow a hook or line or whatever," he said.
"I'm sure they do get tangled up in fishing tackle of all types but we generally don't see them because they die.
"We only see the animals that aren't dead but are still in trouble."
