Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human created waste that has deliberately or accidentally become afloat in a lake, sea, ocean or waterway. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of gyres and on coastlines,[1] frequently washing aground, when it is known as beach litter or tidewrack. Deliberate disposal of wastes at sea is called ocean dumping.
Some seeming forms of marine debris, such as driftwood, occur naturally, and human activities have been discharging similar material into the oceans for thousands of years. Recently however, with the increasing use of plastic, human influence has become an issue as many types of plastics do not biodegrade. Waterborne plastic poses 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, litter washed into storm drains, and wind-blown landfill waste are all contributing to this problem.
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Researchers classify debris as either land or ocean-based; in 1991, the United Nations Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution estimated that up to 80% of the pollution was land-based.[3] A wide variety of anthropogenic artifacts can become marine debris; plastic bags, balloons, buoys, rope, medical waste, glass bottles and plastic bottles, cigarette lighters, beverage cans, styrofoam, lost fishing line and nets, and various wastes from cruise ships and oil rigs are among the items commonly found to have washed ashore. Six pack rings, in particular, are considered a poster child of the damage that garbage can do to the marine environment.[4]
Studies have shown that eighty percent of marine debris is plastic – a component that has been rapidly accumulating since the end of World War II.[5] Plastics accumulate because they don't biodegrade as many other substances do; although they will photodegrade on exposure to sunlight, they do so only under dry conditions, as water inhibits photolysis.[6]
Fishing nets left or lost in the ocean by fishermen – ghost nets – can entangle fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs, crocodiles, seabirds, crabs, and other creatures. Acting as designed, these nets restrict movement, causing starvation, laceration and infection, and, in animals that need to return to the surface to breathe, suffocation.[7]
Nurdles, also known as mermaids' tears, are plastic pellets typically under five millimetres in diameter, and are a major component of marine debris. They are used as a raw material in plastics manufacturing, and are thought to enter the natural environment after accidental spillages. Small plastic fragments are also created by the physical weathering of larger plastic debris. Nurdles strongly resemble fish eggs.[8]
Plastic waste has reached all oceans around the world. This pollution harms and kills an estimated 100,000 sea turtles and marine mammals and 1,000,000 sea creatures each year.[9] Pelagic plastic pieces in the center of our ocean’s gyres outnumber live marine plankton, and are passed up the food chain to reach all marine life.[10] Plastic shopping bags may clog digestive tracts when consumed[11] and may cause starvation through restricting the movement of food, or by filling the stomach and tricking the animal into thinking it is full. A 1994 study of the seabed using trawl nets in the North-Western Mediterranean around the coasts of Spain, France and Italy reported a particularly high mean concentration of debris; an average of 1,935 items per square kilometre. Plastic debris accounted for 77%, of which 93% was plastic bags.[11]
It has been estimated that container ships lose over 10,000 containers at sea each year (usually during storms).[12] 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 before, with the same potential to track currents, such as when Hansa Carrier dropped 21 containers (with one notably containing buoyant Nike shoes).[13] In 2007, MSC Napoli was beached in the English Channel, and dropped hundreds of containers, most of which washed up on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site.[14]
Though it was originally assumed that most oceanic marine waste stemmed directly from ocean dumping, it is now thought that around four fifths[15] of the oceanic debris is from rubbish blown seaward from landfills, and urban runoff washed down storm drains.[2] In the 1987 Syringe Tide, medical waste washed ashore in New Jersey after having been blown from the Fresh Kills Landfill.[16][17] Even on the remote sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, fishing related debris made up approximately 80% of plastics have been found washed up and are responsible for the entanglement of large numbers of Antarctic fur seals.[18]
Ocean dumping is controlled by international law:
In 1972 and 1974, conventions were held in Oslo and Paris respectively, and resulted in the passing of the OSPAR Convention, an international treaty controlling marine pollution in the north-east Atlantic Ocean around Europe.[21] A similar Barcelona Convention exists to protect the Mediterranean Sea. The Water Framework Directive of 2000 is a European Union directive committing EU member states to make their inland and coastal waters free from human influence.[22] In the United Kingdom, the Marine and Coastal Access Act is designed to "ensure clean healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas, by putting in place better systems for delivering sustainable development of marine and coastal environment".[23]
In 1972, the United States Congress passed the Ocean Dumping Act, giving the Environmental Protection Agency power to monitor and regulate the dumping of sewage sludge, industrial waste, radioactive waste and biohazardous materials into the nation's territorial waters.[24] The Act was amended sixteen years later to include medical wastes.[25] It is illegal to dispose of any plastic in all US waters.[2] In 2008, the California State Legislature considered several bills aimed at reducing the sources of marine debris, following the recommendations of the California Ocean Protection Council.[26]
Property law, admiralty law, and the law of the sea may be of relevance when lost, mislaid, and abandoned property is found at 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.[27]
Once waterborne, debris is far from immobile. Flotsam can be blown by the wind, or follow 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 a vast region of the North Pacific Ocean rich with anthropogenic wastes. Estimated to be double the size of Texas, the area contains more than 3 million tons of plastic.[28] This means that there are approximately six pounds of plastic for every pound of plankton per cubic meter of seawater.[29] The mass of plastic in our oceans may be as high as one hundred million tons.[15]
Islands situated within gyres frequently have their coastlines ruined by the waste that inevitably washes ashore; prime examples are Midway[30] and Hawaii.[31] Clean-up teams around the world patrol beaches to clean up this environmental threat.[30]
The currently next biggest known marine garbage patch is the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, estimated to be some hundreds of kilometres across in size.
Many animals that live on or in the sea consume flotsam by mistake, as it often looks similar to their natural prey.[32] 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.[33] 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.[5][34]
Toxic additives used in the manufacture of plastic materials can leach out into their surroundings when exposed to water. Waterborne hydrophobic pollutants collect and magnify on the surface of plastic debris,[15] thus making plastic far more deadly in the ocean than it would be on land.[5] Hydrophobic contaminants are also known to bioaccumulate in fatty tissues, biomagnifying up the food chain and putting great pressure on apex predators. Some plastic additives are known to disrupt the endocrine system when consumed; others can suppress the immune system or decrease reproductive rates.[34]
Not all anthropogenic artefacts in the oceans are harmful however. Iron and concrete do little damage to the environment as they are generally immobile, and 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 coastal waters for that purpose.[35] Some organisms have adapted to live on mobile plastic debris,[36] which has allowed the inhabitants to disperse all over the world and become invasive species in remote ecosystems.[37]
A variety of techniques are used to collect and remove marine (or riverine) debris by concerned jurisdictions or volunteer organizations. Besides collection by hand, some cities operate special beach-cleaning machines that collect trash deposited by the sea along the coast line. Other places (e.g. Baltimore[38]) arrange for picking debris while it is still floating; such activities are often undertaken regularly where floating debris are perceived to pose danger to navigation. For example, the US Army Corps of Engineers reports removing 90 tons of "drifting material" from San Francisco Bay shipping lanes etc. every month. The Corps has been doing this work since 1942, when a seaplane carrying Admiral Chester W. Nimitz collided with a piece of floating debris and sank, resulting in the death of its pilot.[39]
Elsewhere, various kinds of "trash traps" are installed on small rivers flowing into the sea, to capture waterborne debris before it reaches the sea. For example, South Australia's Adelaide operates a number of such traps, known as "trash racks" or "gross pollutant traps" on the Torrens River, which flows (during the wet season) into Gulf St Vincent.[40]
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