Litter in the Marine Environment Sierra Club Marine Action Team Judith S. Weis

Trash and abandoned fishing gear (primarily large trawl and drift nets) float into protected, low-energy, shallow-water environments MARINE LITTER - TRASH

Common Types of Trash on Beaches Styrofoam food containers Cans, plastic bottles Plastic straws Cigarette butts balloons Toys, shoes….

Plastic Bags Gradually break up into smaller and smaller pieces. Toxic chemicals can leach out from the plastic.

Plastic Bottles Different kinds of plastic degrade at different rates, but the average time for a plastic bottle to completely degrade is at least 450 years. It can even take some bottles 1000 years to biodegrade! 90% of bottles aren’t recycled.Bottles made with Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or PETE) will probably never biodegrade. Styrofoam Not biodegradable. It flies around in the wind, floats in water, and breaks into tiny pieces littering beaches.

Balloons They take years to biodegrade. Can kill marine life since some sea creatures think they are food and eat them. They block the digestive tract so animals may starve to death. Cigarette Butts The most common form of litter on the beaches of the U.S. and world-wide. Toxic chemicals can leach out of the cigarette filters into the water and harm marine life.

Entangling Swallowing Worldwide, 100,000 marine mammals and turtles killed annually by plastic litter. 267 species found entangled in or having ingested marine debris.

Marine Debris Statistics The Ocean Conservancy runs International Coastal Cleanup in 127 countries; volunteers clean up, take data every year 3rd Saturday in September: 60% of debris is fishing lines and nets, beach toys, and food wrappers. 29% is cigarette butts and filters. Styrofoam, bags/film, plastic bottles common Plastic doesn’t break down – bottles, bags large part of debris Marine debris is increasing by ~5 %/yr despite increasing beach cleanups New Article Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Oct. 2015: 90% of sea birds are eating plastic

Microplastics Definition: Plastic particles smaller than 1 mm (see photo compared to a penny) Sources: breakdown of larger particles, fibers from synthetic fabrics in washing machines, microbeads (black spheres in photo) in personal care products (scrubs, toothpaste) Accumulate in Great Garbage Patches in gyres in the middle of the oceans Toxic chemicals attach to them. Are a route for toxic chemicals to get into the food chain. Eaten by plankton and other small animals. Found in fish skin, crab gills

Microplastics in the food chain 55% of fish species sampled in Indonesia contained human-derived debris. In total, 28% of fish sampled contained debris, with one having 21 pieces of plastic inside it. In the US, 67% of the species, including Pacific oyster, contained debris. These included Pacific anchovy, striped bass and Chinook salmon. 25% of the individuals sampled were affected.

Video Resources - microbeads plastic bags

Switch to reusable products (non-plastic preferred): Supermarket shopping and produce bags. reusable water bottle Switch to natural fabrics rather than plastic synthetics Refuse the plastic straw you are offered with a drink – or better tell server ahead of time you don’t want one Ask restaurants for compostable packaging – plates, food to go Ban problematic consumer products Plastic bags (already banned in CA, HI and municipalities in 18 states) Polystyrene/styrofoam - foodware and packing peanuts (widely banned locally) microbeads (banned in US 2015) Clean up Recover lost fishing gear Organize local beach and river cleanups What you can do to Reduce Plastic Pollution