Marine litter is any persistent, manufactured or processed solid material discarded, disposed oforabandoned in the marine and coastal environment. Marine litter consists of items that have been made or used by people and deliberately discarded into the sea or rivers or on beaches; brought indirectly to the sea with rivers, sewage, storm water or winds; accidentally lost, including material lost at sea in bad weather (fishing gear, cargo); or deliberately left by people on beaches and shores.
GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF MARINE LITTER
Marine litter may be found near the source of input but could also be transported over long distances with ocean currents and winds. As a result, marine debris is found in all oceanic areas of the world – not only
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In 2003, another 90 tonnes were found near the Pearl and Hermes, and Midway Islands. Heavy fishing gear litters the beaches, but probably much more serious is the fact that the gear gets snagged in the coral reefs, tearing the corals apart. It also traps endangered monk seals and threatens green sea turtles.
There are strong indications from many regions, e.g., the North Sea, that the quantities of marine litter are increasing. Consequently, the resulting environmental and socio-economic problems are worsening.
SOURCES OF MARINE LITTER
Because marine litter comes from sea-based sources and land-based sources, measures to reduce or prevent it must be taken in a large number of places, within a large number of activities in a wide range of societal sectors, and by many people in many situations.
Marine litter could, for example, be waste from landfills (waste dumps) on land. It could be galley waste and cargo room waste from commercial shipping. It could be domestic waste. It could be nets and fish boxes from fishing vessels. It could be waste from industrial manufacture or distribution. It could be medical desecrate, and sewage-related waste from bathrooms. However, the main sources can be grouped as
In the article Ocean Trash: A Floating Insect Nursery by Andrew Hitchings, the author describes how trash particles both affects and benefits the ecosystem. When trash is thrown into the ocean, it becomes tiny particles that are later digested by animals who usually eat plankton. These tiny trash particles are known as “microplastic.” The author analyzed and explained a research done by Miriam C. Goldstein and her colleagues, at the University of California in San Diego in 2012. Goldstein and her colleagues found an insect that is taking advantage of these micrplastics on the oceans and these insects known as “sea skaters” would use them to literally survive and increase its population. Sea skaters use the microplastic to lay their eggs, and since the amount of microplastic is increasing, the same thing will happen to sea skaters in the future. (Hitchings, 2012)
Many people think that there is nothing special in cleaning of this rubbish, but in fact it’s not so easy as it sounds. Scientist have invented special instrument that will gather garbage, it is look like a net, but another problem has occurred. This problem is that many plastic pieces are the same size as little sea animals and special designed nets will catch not only debris, but a habitats of ocean too. Another barrier in saving of the ocean is its sizes. Even if people will invent the net which will only take trash, without fish or other animals, the scale of the ocean will make this job too long and time-wasting. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific
plastic it gets thrown into huge piles in an excluded area. Plastic is non-degradable so it
...of sodium cyanide is released into a target area in order to stun fish. This method of fishing is used mainly for the capture of aquarium fish, to be sold to wealthier countries, but it is also used for catching food fish. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of cyanide are released into the Pilipino reefs each year. As you can imagine, pumping large quantities of toxins into a fragile ecosystem has negative effects. Even low concentrations of cyanide inhibits photosynthesis in zooxanthellae, a genus of algae with which coral grows symbiotically. The death of the algae removes the major food source of the coral, causing bleaching and death. The cyanide also harms the coral directly, blocking the oxygen-transporting proteins, and preventing oxygen from reaching the cells, causing death.
Fifty-million plastic bags enter the Australian waters every year, causing the death of thousands of sea creatures. Imagine you went on a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. As you arrive, it is clear to see garbage floating on the ocean and you can only imagine what rubbish lies beneath the surface. This disturbs me! What are we doing to our beautiful, yet innocent marine life?
Trash. Trash mostly comes from food products and is extremely common in our world. Some trash can be recycled where it will be reused instead of going into landfills, but some garbage just physically can't. Recycling helps prevent the amount of waste thrown into landfills and overall helps cleanse our earth. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) constantly urges the community to recycle as much as they can, but in the end it's the people's choice on whether recycling happens or not.
Such as general domestic garbage, food waste, ash and packaging materials, human manure, emergency waste like plastic and paper, remains from disaster, mud and dirt that came from natural disaster, and many more.
Ironically, plastic, which is a material designed to last forever, is generally used for things we tend to throw away. Every year, about one hundred to two hundred billion pounds of plastic are manufactured. Only 31% of that plastic is actually recycled. Biomass packaging estimates 10% of that plastic ends up in the ocean annually. About 20% of it coming from ships and other platforms, and the other 80% coming from land derived sources, such as international garbage dumping, winds or tides, either way it finds its way to the ocean.
However, the amount of derelict fishing gear has risen substantially over the past few decades due to increased fishing effort and the transition to durable, synthetic materials like nylon. These new materials resist deterioration and persist in the ocean for years. Derelict fishing gear harms the marine ecosystem in a variety of ways, like creating hazardous boating conditions and disturbing the
Through heavy use of plastic and disposable products we have polluted our oceans with much unwanted debris. After competing in a transpacific yacht race, Captain Charles Moore was the first to discover a part of the ocean that was filled with an abnormal amount of trash. This giant part of the Pacific Ocean is known
The definition of litter is trash that is left lying in an open or public place. Yet, why is it important not to litter? Littering pollutes the environment. As soon as a piece of trash touches the ground, it is considered litter. Since it doesn’t decompose, it doesn’t disappear until someone picks it up or it is washed into a body of water. While on land, innocent animals and children are at risk of picking up the litter, which may be life-threatening. Once litter is washed into a body of water, the marine life becomes threatened. Litter on land can easily be removed by someone picking it up; however, it isn’t removed from the water until a person cleanses the water of the antibody or it is absorbed somehow, such as by the animals.
NOAA Marine Debris Program. “De-mystifying the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’” Marine Debris. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2010.
Did you know that more than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct? According to Pandey, the author of Humans Pushing Marine Life toward ‘Major Extinction’, nearly 10,000 species go extinct each year, and this rate is estimated to be 1,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate (1). Human beings are causing irreversible damage to the oceans and their wildlife, which is being led by two major reasons: Commercial fishing or over-fishing, which damaged the marine environment and caused a loss in the marine life diversity, and pollution, which is a primary way of the extinction causes that drastically modifies the marine life habitat. As a result of the commercial fishing and pollution, many of the marine species will start disappearing of the oceans. Briggs emphasizes that over-fishing “has induced population collapses in many species. So instead of having less than a hundred species at risk, as was the case some 30-40 years ago, there are now a thousand or more (10).”
We share this planet with so many other species, living both on land and water. Similar to us humans there are mammals like monkeys living on land and whales living in sea. Whales are not the only mammals living in the sea, there are dolphins, walruses, seals etc. Though above mentioned beings don’t fall under a single biological group, they are categorized as marine mammals due to their dependence on the sea for existence.
...harges of Human-made Debris Comprise the Largest Source of Marine Debris in Oceans World-wide (nearly 80%)." Plastic Debris Rivers to Sea Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.