Marine Debris
By: Angelica, Carissa and Samantha
http://becausewater.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/pacific-garbage-patch12.jpg
• Gyre of marine debris
Definition of marine debris:
• Man made garbage that has been accidentally or deliberately
littered into a body of water
• Common misconception, not just a few pieces of trash
• One of the leading causes of pollution in our oceans6
Source of these debris?
• Estimated 20% ocean sources
Page 6
http://www.cookiesound.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/garbage-in-ocean.jpg
80% land sources7
These can include:
• Waste from ships/ fishing
vessels
• Sewage related
• Litter at beaches/coastlines5
North Pacific Gyre
• The “convergence zone”
• 20o N and 40o S Latitude
• 100-300 miles off coast of gyres center
2 Accumulation Zones
Western Garbage Patch
•
Japan
Eastern Garbage Patch
•
Hawaii and California
Undetermined, only estimated
•
•
•
•
•
Currents
Distribution and volume
100 million tons up
Expanding 100 feet down
Not dense
Natural Disasters Effect Size
Tsunamis
• Indonesia in December 2004
• Japan 2011
Typhoons
• Philippines 2013
In 2012 researchers began looking at the effects
of the Tsunami in Japan of 2011.
Estimate of debris location from Japan’s Tsunami
14 researchers 2600 nautical miles
from Majuro, Japan to Tokyo in 19 days
Each team member was assigned a type of item to log
This research contributed to the study of the Garbage Patch
Density.2
http://www.algalita.org/uploads/2012_asia_pacific_expedition_report.pdf
Plastic Debris
 Fergusson (1974) for instance, then a member of the
Council of the British Plastics Federation and a Fellow
of the Plastics Institute, stated that “plastics litter is a
very small proportion of all litter and causes no harm to
the environment except as an eyesore”
 Does not biodegrade, it photodegrades
 Photodegrades into small particulates
Plastic Debris (cont’d)
 Constitutes for 90% of all garbage floating in the world
 ~200 billion plastic produced each year and 10% ends up
in the ocean
 30 million tons of plastic is produced in the U.S. annually
 70% of it sink to the ocean floor and the rest floats
 Affects marine life, fishing, and tourism
 In some areas plastic outweighs phytoplankton 6:1
Drift Plastic
http://www.moonshineink.com/sites/default/files/styles/homepageslideshow/public/ml_java_birdplastic2.jpg
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet-2/report/2007/8/plastic_ocean_report.pdf
Ingestion of Plastics
Albatross:
 Albatrosses live almost their entire lives at sea, coming
to land only to nest
 Adult albatrosses feed on fish, crustaceans, and squid,
and often follow ships, feeding on discarded food.
Parents feed their young by regurgitating previously
digested food into their mouths.
Ingestion of Plastics (cont’d)
Rapid Increase of plastic ingestion
• Since the 1980’s amount has increased
dramatically
• Not all victims are discovered
• Thus estimates are likely low1
Entanglement In Plastic
Debris
 Discarded fishing gear – “ghost nets”
 Curious young seal pups & plastic loops cycle
Plastic Scrubbers
 Small fragments of plastic (~0.5 mm) derived from
hand cleaners, cosmetic preparations and airblast
cleaning media
 Studies found in New Zealand & Canada using
airblasting, found polyethylene and polystyrene residues
Swirling pools of garbage we
consume!
 PCB’s DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve
in the water but are absorbed by plastic.
 One study reported over 84 pieces of plastic in the
stomachs of fish samples from the garbage patch
 The same toxins in the plastic are in the fish tissues.
 We EAT these fish and their toxins too!!
Prevention so far…
 US House of Representatives recently passed an
Amendment Act to senate.
 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
must establish a program and assign the United states
Coast Guard to assist.
 The program must identify and determine sources of the
pollution. It must reduce and prevent the marine debris.
 Also determine its impacts on the marine environment and
navigation safety
 The program must determine and prevent land-based
sources of pollution all in coordinance with non-federal
entities
To prevent expansion and promote
reduction of the garbage patch we
must….
 Responsibility of drifting garbage must be clarified
 Cooperation of all nations and determine an international
policy
 Raise public awareness of the problem on an international
level
 Encourage international organizations already in place to
expand efforts as well as hold guilty parties accountable.
 Promote and support Research and data collection to prove
these methods work and are worth the time and money
invested.
Marine Debris is important
 The Pacific Garbage patch has doubled in size in a
decade
 Islands of Garbage are appearing all over the globe
 The Pacific Garbage patch is just one of 5 large gyres
that are believed to be collecting large quantities of
garbage and human waste products.
 We are what we eat … This is becoming a large issue
affecting the oceans, wildlife, and US!
References
Samantha Brown
 Slides 2-7, 10, 14, 15, 18
1.
2.
3.
Blight L.K., and A.E. Burger. 1997. Occurrence of plastic particles in seabirds
from the eastern North Pacific. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 34 (5): 323-325.
http://www.algalita.org/uploads/2012_asia_pacific_expedition_report.pdf page 9
http://www.algalita.org/pdf/PLASTIC%20DEBRIS%20ENGLISH.pdf
4.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Marine Debris in the North Pacific." A Summary of
Existing Information and Identification of Data Gaps (2011): 6-7. Web.
http://www.epa.gov/region9/marine-debris/pdf/MarineDebris-NPacFinalAprvd.pdf
5.
Allsopp, Michelle, Adam Walters, David Santillo, and Paul Johnston. "Green Peace." Plastic
Debris in the World’s Oceans (n.d.): 5+. Web.
<http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet2/report/2007/8/plastic_ocean_report.pdf>.
6.
Allsopp, Michelle, Adam Walters, David Santillo, and Paul Johnston. "Green
Peace." Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans (n.d.): 5+. Web.
<http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/planet2/report/2007/8/plastic_ocean_report.pdf>.
Gregory M.R. and P.G. Ryan. 1997. Pelagic plastics and other seaborne
persistent synthetic debris: a review of Southern Hemisphere perspectives.
Prepared for AB 259 (Krekorian), AB 820 (Karnette), and AB 904 (Feuer) by the
Algalita Marine Research Foundation
7.
References
Carissa Vuong
Slides 8, 9, 11-13, 16, 17, 19, 20
 Derraik, Jose GB. "The pollution of the marine
environment by plastic debris: a review." Marine
pollution bulletin 44.9 (2002): 842-852.
 Silverman, Jacob. "Why is the world biggest landfill in
the Pacific Ocean?" 19 September
2007. HowStuffWorks.
 Barnes, David KA. "Biodiversity: invasions by marine
life on plastic debris." Nature 416.6883 (2002): 808809.
References
Angelica Paulino
Slides 21-24
 Kazarian, Ursula. "Islands of Garbage Continue to
Grow in Pacific." Sustainable Development Law &
Policy 7.1 (2006): 21.
 Hoshaw, Lindsey. "Afloat in the ocean, expanding
islands of trash." New York Times 9 (2009).