SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Ocean waste

We use the ocean as if it were a huge garbage can. We never give a thought to what gets washed out to sea through storm drains or what we dump offshore.

Of course a spectacular oil slick wakes us up for a while, but it is such a small part of sea pollution.

During her ocean crossings, Raphaëla sees lots of waste - even far from the coasts, and far from where they have been thrown away. Glass or plastic bottles, beer cans, plastic bags, abandoned nets, the same kind of waste that goes in landfills or is burned, processed or even sometimes recycled… all this macro waste floats, drifts or sinks to the bottom of the sea, forgotten and ignored.

Waste drifts everywhere

During one of its missions in the Arctic Ocean, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (lfremer) has measured the quantity of waste in the straits of Fram, in the North Atlantic. At a depth of 2500 meters the researchers found 45 plastic waste objects per km_; a total of 220 waste objects of all kinds (including metal) per km_. This garbage has obviously traveled a long way.

The impact is huge and affects diverse systems. Garbage dirties coasts and beaches. For example, on the southwest French coast between 10,000 and 14,000 m3 of waste washes up every year – a mountain of garbage. Waste covers the bottom of the oceans and stays for extraordinarily long periods (100 years for steel, 200 for aluminum, around 500 years for chemical plastic, 4000 years for glass). The effects are horrible: turtles, birds and marine mammals are suffocated; coastal wildlife and flora is damaged; disease is spread (like Malaria in Madagascar and the Comoro Islands).

Yet, according to the Marpol agreement, dumping waste in the ocean is strictly forbidden. Several international conventions (London 1972, Basle 1989) have delineated policies and rules. Pollution is a major issue of UNEP programs (United Nations Environmental Programs) in most of the world regions, but the garbage keeps coming.

A varied human pollution

On top of the macro waste, waste water (from private and industrial use) remains the principal source of pollution of seas and coasts. For example, the pouring of nitrogen-rich compounds into the oceans has dramatically increased from agriculture run-off and atmospheric deposits. This kind of waste kills some species, causes others to grow too fast and disturbs the fundamental balance of the oceans. In Europe, North America and South and East Asia the phenomenon is aggravated by the rapid disappearance of wetlands and forests in estuaries.

At the Stockholm 1972 Conference, the major issue was the use of DDT (and other “POP”s [persistent organic pollutants]). North American seabird populations affected by DDT recovered after this chemical was banned in the region. Prevention and rules about ship pollution also decreased out-of-sight ship oil and bilge purges. We can change all this – if we have the will and make good decisions, all things are possible.

Raphaëla has agreed with the Ifremer to measure and describe the waste she sees. This will allow us to understand the type, direction (either origin or terminus) and volumes better – a first step in control.

Photo : Ifremer

More on the following sites

A complete report from Global Environment Outlook n°3 (UNEP, United Nations Environment Programme)
http://www.unep.org//geo/geo3/english/315.htm

Some data of this page have been taken on
www.longitude181.org, a dedicated NGO.