Marine debris

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Debris collected on beaches on Tern Island in the French Frigate Shoals over one month. Items collected were 288 miscellaneous plastic pieces, thirteen fishing floats, thirty-three plastic bottles, two toys, a lightstick, thirty-four bottle caps, a lighter, two balls, five shoes, three fluorescent lightbulbs, three regular bulbs, nineteen glass bottles, one metal flask, two baskets, twenty-one pieces of rope, a three-square-foot net ball and a large piece of styrofoam.

Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has found itself floating in a lake, sea, ocean or waterway. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of gyres and on coastlines,^[1] frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter.

Some forms of marine debris, such as harmless driftwood, occur naturally, and human activities have been adding similar material into the oceans for thousands of years. Only recently, however, with the advent of plastic, has our influence become an issue—plastic marine debris does not biodegrade.

Waterborne plastic is both unsightly and dangerous; posing a serious threat to fish, seabirds, marine reptiles, and marine mammals, as well as to boats and coastal habitations.^[2] Ocean dumping, accidental container spillages, and wind-blown landfill waste are all contributing to this growing problem.

[edit] Types of debris

Marine debris on the Hawaiian coast

A wide variety of anthropogenic artefacts can become marine debris; items such as plastic bags, syringes and other medical waste, buoys, rope, glass bottles and plastic bottles, cigarette lighters, beverage cans, styrofoam, lost fishing line and nets, and various wastes from cruise ships and oil rigs. Plastic comprises over 80% of all debris, a component that has been rapidly accumulating since the end of World War II, as it does not biodegrade.^[3]

[edit] Nurdles

A nurdle is a plastic pellet typically under 5mm in diameter. They may be released directly into the environment (as a spilt industrial raw material or a cosmetic exfoliant), or through the physical weathering of large plastic debris. Nurdles are a major contributor to marine debris and can cause starvation to any marine wildlife that ingests them, as well as potentially releasing toxins. They are also known as mermaids' tears, a pre-production plastic pellets or plastic resin pellets.^[4]

[edit] Source of debris

Travel of the Friendly Floatees

It has been estimated that container ships lose over 10,000 containers at sea each year (usually during a storm).^[5] One famous spillage occurred in the Pacific Ocean in 1992, when thousands of rubber ducks and other toys went overboard during a storm. The toys have since been found all over the world; Curtis Ebbesmeyer and other scientists have used the incident to gain a better understanding of ocean currents. Similar incidents have happened, with the same potential to track currents, such as when Hansa Carrier dropped 21 containers (with one notably containing buoyant Nike shoes).^[6] In 2006, thousands of bags of Doritos chips washed up on the beach at Frisco, North Carolina.^[7] In 2007, MSC Napoli was beached in the English Channel, and dropped hundreds of containers, most of which washed up on the Devon coastline.^[8]

Though it was originally assumed that most oceanic marine waste stemmed directly from ocean dumping, it is now thought that around four fifths^[9] of the oceanic debris is from rubbish blown seaward from landfills, and washed seaward by storm drains.^[2] An example of this would be the 1987 Syringe Tide, whereby medical wastes washed ashore in New Jersey, after having blown from the Fresh Kills Landfill.

[edit] Legality of ocean dumping

A spray-painted sign above a sewer in Colorado Springs, Colorado warning people to not pollute the local stream by dumping.

Ocean dumping is the deliberate disposal of wastes at sea, a practice controlled by law.

• The London Convention (1972) – a United Nations agreement to control ocean dumping^[10]
• MARPOL 73/78 – an international convention designed to minimise pollution of the seas, including dumping, oil and exhaust pollution^[11]
• OSPAR Convention (72/74) – legislation to control marine pollution in the north-east Atlantic Ocean around Europe^[12]
• Water Framework Directive (2000) – an EU directive committing member states to make their inland and coastal waters free from human influence^[13]

[edit] Law of the United States

• Ocean Dumping Act^[14] (1972), amended by the Ocean Dumping Ban Act (1988)^[15]
• Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (1972)^[16]

In the United States, the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000^[17] was enacted to help reduce the risk of diseases for users of water from the American coastline and Great Lakes.^[18] The act authorizes the EPA to award program development and implementation grants to eligible states, territories, tribes, and local governments to support microbiological testing and monitoring of coastal recreational waters that are adjacent to beaches or similar points of access used by the public. Currently, the California Legislature is considering a host of bills designed to reduce the sources of marine debris, following the recommendations of the California Ocean Protection Council.^[19]

[edit] Ownership of debris

Lost, mislaid, and abandoned property can be of consequence within property law, admiralty law, and the law of the sea. Salvage law has as a basis that a salvor should be rewarded for risking his life and property to rescue the property of another from peril. On land the distinction between deliberate and accidental loss led to the concept of a 'treasure trove'. In the United Kingdom, shipwrecked goods should be reported to a Receiver of Wreck, and if identifiable, they should be returned to their rightful owner.^[20]

[edit] The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The currents of the North Pacific Gyre spiral inwards

Once waterbourne, debris is far from immobile. Flotsam can be blown by the wind, and follows the flow of ocean currents, often ending up in the middle of oceanic gyres where currents are weakest. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one such example of this, comprising of a vast region of the North Pacific Ocean rich with anthropogenic wastes. Conservative estimates of its size compare it to Texas,^[21] whereas some reckon it closer to the size of Africa.^[22] The mass of plastic in our oceans may be as high as one hundred million tonnes.^[9]

Should any islands be unlucky enough to lie within a gyre, their coastlines will likely be ruined by the waste that inevitably washes ashore. Prime examples of this are Midway^[23] and Hawaii.^[24] Clean-up teams around the world patrol beaches to clean up this environmental threat.

[edit] Environmental impact

Remains of an albatross containing ingested flotsam

Many animals that live on or in the sea consume flotsam by mistake, as it often looks similar to their natural prey.^[25] Plastic debris, when bulky or tangled, is difficult to pass, and may become permanently lodged in the digestive tracts of these animals, blocking the passage of food and causing death through starvation or infection.^[26] Tiny floating particles also resemble zooplankton, which can lead filter feeders to consume them and cause them to enter the ocean food chain. In samples taken from the North Pacific Gyre in 1999 by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, the mass of plastic exceeded that of zooplankton by a factor of six.^[3] More recently, reports have surfaced that there may now be 30 times more plastic than plankton, the most abundant form of life in the ocean.^[27]

This turtle is trapped in a ghost net, an abandoned fishing net

Many toxins can be found in plastic materials (where they are used as plasticizers, etc), one of the most harmful being polychlorinated biphenyls, which can leach into the surrounding waters. While safety standards are increasing (PCBs were banned in the 1970s), all the plastics produced in the years prior are still circulating in the world's oceans. It has also been suggested that persistent organic pollutants may be collecting and magnifying on the surface of plastic debris, adsorbing permanently to its surface and making oceanic plastic debris far more deadly that it would be on land.

Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been left or lost in the ocean by fishermen. They can entangle and kill fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs, crocodiles, penguins and other seabirds, crabs, and other creatures, including the occasional human diver.^[28]

However, not all anthropogenic artefacts in the oceans do harm. Iron and concrete do little damage to the environment as they are generally immobile; in fact, they can even be used as scaffolding for the creation of artificial reefs, increasing the biodiversity of a coastal region. Entire ships have been deliberately sunk in various attempts to do just that.^[29]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Marine debris

• NOAA Marine Debris Program – US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Marine Debris Abatement – US Environmental Protection Agency
• Marine Research, Education and Restoration – Algalita Marine Research Foundation
• Beach Litter – UK Marine Conservation Society
• Harmful Marine Debris – Australian Government
• The trash vortex – Greenpeace
• High Seas GhostNet Survey – US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Ocean Debris: Habitat for Some, Havoc for Environment, Experts Say – National Geographic
• Rubber Duckies Map The World – CBS News
• Social & Economic Costs of Marine Debris – US NOAA Socioeconomics

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