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Marine Litter:
© Algalita
Time To Clean Up Our Act
Marine litter is a growing global problem which poses an increasingly serious threat to the environment, the economy and health.
To rid our coasts and seas of marine litter, we need to understand its
various sources, forms and impacts and come up with imaginative,
concrete and ambitious solutions. Meanwhile, we must all reflect
on what we choose to buy and discard to reduce the amount of litter
ending up at sea.
K. Falkenberg
Director-General for Environment
European Commission
Definition
Marine litter consists of items that have been deliberately
discarded, unintentionally lost, or transported by winds
and rivers, into the sea and on beaches. It mainly consists
of plastics, wood, metals, glass, rubber, clothing and paper.
Land-based sources account for up to 80% of marine litter
– these include tourism, sewage and illegal or poorly managed landfills. The main sea-based sources are shipping and
fishing.
Impacts
Many marine species
such as seals, whales and
marine turtles become
entangled in marine litter, causing suffocation,
strangulation and drowning. Marine litter can also
restrict movement, reduce the ability to catch
food and avoid predators, or cause lacerations
and infections. The most
frequent cause of entanglement is discarded fishing gear;
other causes include ‘six-pack’ rings and balloon ribbons.
© Algalita
Another serious problem affecting many species of whales,
birds and fish is the ingestion of marine debris, particularly
plastics. Mistaken as food or ingested accidentally during
feeding, debris may block the digestive tract or cause internal injuries and lead to death. It can also impair digestion
and stunt growth as well as reproduction rates. There is increasing concern that, along
with plastics, animals could
be ingesting persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and
toxic compounds such as
medicines. Marine debris can
also cause damage to coral
reefs and change the structure of the seabed, affecting
the plants and animals that
live there.
Scope, location and distribution
Littered beaches are an obvious eyesore but marine litter is
found in every ocean of the planet and in places as remote
as Antarctica. A large part of this litter is visible only to divers
or when it is fished out. More worryingly, plastics, which account for the large majority of marine litter, do not biodegrade but fragment into ever-smaller pieces before turning
into microscopic particles of ‘plastic dust’. With the production of plastic increasing rapidly, small fragments like these
are likely to multiply. Invisible to the naked eye, these microscopic particles mingle with phytoplankton and simply
cannot be scooped out of the oceans.
© ThinkStock
Marine litter is not just unsightly. Large fragments on beaches can cause injuries. Sewage-related and medical waste
may be a risk to human health. There are also economic
consequences such as the loss of income from tourism, the
cost of removing litter from beaches and harbours and the
damage to ships and fishing gear.
Garbage patches, plastic soup
and mermaid tears
Far out at sea, at the centre of huge circular
motions of currents, known as gyres, marine
debris gathers to form increasingly large “garbage patches”. While the most well known is the
Great North Pacific Garbage Patch, stretching
over hundreds of miles, circular currents – and
probably, similar patches – exist in every ocean.
Far from looking like a floating dumpsite, they
contain the occasional large debris but most of
the litter consists of plastic fragments less than
a centimetre long floating below the surface.
In the Great North Pacific Garbage Patch, these
fragments sometimes reach concentrations six
times higher than zooplankton, turning the sea
into a plastic soup. Known as mermaid tears,
the plastic fragments are small enough to be ingested by filter-feeding animals, such as whales,
shellfish or flamingos. While some of the fragments come from discarded plastic items, raw
material from the plastic industry accounts for a
large proportion.
The impact of microscopic plastic particles on
marine fauna and the marine food web is still
insufficiently known but recent studies give
cause for concern. During production, chemicals
are frequently added to plastics. Some of these
have well-documented toxic effects on humans.
Along with tissues and metals, plastics are also
known to absorb persistent organic pollutants
(POPs) from contaminated seawater. More research is urgently needed on the potential contamination of the food web by toxic chemicals
and POPs, and on its consequences on human
consumption.
Need for action
Marine litter affects all of us. It threatens biodiversity, our
health and our economy. Its multiple causes, sources, forms
and impacts call for global coordination, extensive research,
creative, collaborative approaches and urgent action.
Thanks to the United Nations Environment Programme,
regional sea conventions and various NGOs, some initiatives are already under way. These range from international
beach cleaning days to regional research projects and highly
visible awareness-raising stunts. Every single gesture counts
– including the choice of individual consumers to refuse
single-use plastic bags.
Getting the measure of marine pollution
© JA van Franeker - IMARES
In an innovative project to measure marine pollution in the North Sea, the OSPAR regional sea convention for the North Atlantic has been inspecting
the stomach contents of Northern Fulmars found
dead on the coastline. Commonly found in this region, the Fulmar is a bird that only feeds at sea and
usually does not regurgitate indigestible items. In
the North Sea almost every Fulmar has plastic in
their stomach, with an average of around 0.3 of a
gram of plastic per bird. Fulmars beached in the
most polluted parts of the southern North Sea
have double this amount. It is impossible to prove
that this represents harm to Fulmars. However, in a
human stomach, it would take 60 grams of plastic
to reach a similar proportion. If this amount of litter was ingested by humans around the southern
North Sea, ambient levels of litter would certainly
be considered harmful and immediate action
would be taken.
At European level, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive
(MSFD) adopted in June 2008, aims to achieve good environmental status for all marine waters by 2020. Each Member
State is required, in cooperation with other Member States
and non-EU countries within a marine region, to develop a
strategy for their marine waters. This must contain a detailed
assessment of the state of the environment, a definition of
“good environmental status” at regional level and the establishment of clear environmental targets and monitoring programmes. On 1 September 2010, the European Commission
adopted a decision outlining the criteria to be used by
Member States to assess the environmental status of their
seas. Several of these criteria relate to marine litter.
The MSFD working group on marine litter has underlined
both the seriousness of the issue and the urgent need for
further coordinated research to ensure a common approach
to monitoring and mitigation. Areas for research include impacts on marine life, degradation processes at sea, the study
of litter-related micro-particles and chemicals associated with
litter, factors influencing the distribution and densities of litter
at sea, and the assessment and monitoring of socio-economic harm. If we want to rid our seas and coasts of marine litter it
is high time for all players – scientists, NGOs, industry, policymakers and members of the public at large – to sit around the
table and come up with innovative solutions.
© European Union, 2010