ICC volunteers cleaned 10 million lbs of trash from our coasts

By: Dianna Parker

One rubber chicken, 117 mattresses, 4,159 candles, and 689,274 utensils. What do all of these things have in common?

They’re all marine debris collected last September at the Ocean Conservancy’s 2012 International Coastal Cleanup®, sponsored in part by the NOAA Marine Debris Program.

The numbers are in: more than 550,000 volunteers came together to collect 10 million pounds of marine debris.  In the United States, volunteers found enough bottles that, when stacked end to end, equal the height of 1,000 Empire State Buildings. That’s a lot of trash on our beaches and in our waterways!

This litter is threatening our marine environment, economy, and health, and the problem will only get worse unless we change the way we consume and dispose of products. There are solutions, and we can prevent litter from ending up in the ocean.

So here’s a challenge: the next time you use a throw-away item: a bag, bottle, or utensil, answer the question, “Where it’s going?” How will you keep your items from becoming litter in our oceans, rivers, and streams?

Head to Ocean Conservancy’s data release page for some neat infographics on last year’s trash haul. Here are the top 10 types volunteers found this year:

Marine Debris in Your Backyard: Great Lakes

By: Sarah Opfer

Overlooking the Great Lakes region from Metzger Pier along Lake Erie

The Great Lakes, while old, are not quite as ancient as the world’s oceans. Approximately 10,000 years ago, retreating glaciers carved out basins and filled them in with melt water. As such, the Great Lakes contain 21 percent of the world’s surface fresh water and are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth..  That is enough water to cover the 48 contiguous United States to a uniform depth of 9.5 feet!  There are five distinct Great Lake Basins: Lake Superior,  Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario, but they form a single, interconnected body of fresh water that is connected all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

The first trip to the Great Lakes is surprising for people, who are often impressed and awed by their size.  The total surface area of the lakes is approximately 94,250 square miles, which is nearly the same size as the United Kingdom and larger than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined. These physical features make the region unique in many respects, and even though the lakes are not near the ocean, it does not exclude them from the impacts of marine debris.

While we may not have whales and seals that become entangled in fishing gear, our wildlife is not immune.  Each year, birds, such as seagulls and great blue herons, as well as fish and other local wildlife are found entangled in debris during beach cleanups.  The Great Lakes sustain an approximate $4 billion recreational fishing industry.  It is not uncommon to see the shores and lakes dotted with fishermen and boats enjoying the catch of walleye, perch, and other lake species.  It is also not uncommon than to see pieces of monofilament fishing line in the environment, causing an entanglement hazard for wildlife.  Many states in the region have a monofilament recycling program in place or are working to establish one.  This program distributes recycling bins (made of PVC pipes) in popular fishing spots and gives fisherman the opportunity to properly dispose of their discarded or lost line.  We encourage you to look for one in your area!

With the Reel In and Recycle program, participants install and maintain a monofilament recycling bin to prevent old fishing line from becoming marine debris. For more information, visit: http://www.boatus.com/foundation/monofilament

Historic sawdust and wood chip material that has washed up on a local beach in Manistique, MI

Marine debris found in the Great Lakes can range from lost or discarded fishing gear to foam and plastic – posing a threat to local wildlife.

History also plays an important role in debris issues in the Great Lakes.  As settlers expanded west, the region became home to a booming lumbering industry in the late 1800s-early 1900s.  Lumber mills shipped materials from the region to areas around the United States and internationally, but they also produced millions of tons of waste in the form of sawdust, woodchips, and slabwood. That waste was discarded into the Great Lakes basin.

Two hundred years later, the Great Lakes are still polluted with this unique type of marine debris.  While the exact impacts of the sawdust and woodchips are unknown, it is believed that this historic material smothers the bottom-environment, limiting environmental productivity and habitat while contributing to the degradation of fish and wildlife populations. Efforts to restore areas like Manistique River in Michigan have already begun.

While we can’t prevent the historic sawdust issue, we can do something about the other debris in the Great Lakes. Remember the next time you are walking a beach or enjoying a day out on the water, to please secure your trash, properly dispose and recycle it, and pick up any other debris you might see laying around.  We want to protect our unique freshwater resource!

Marine Debris in Your Backyard: Alaska

By Peter Murphy

When people think of Alaska, most imagine a pristine wilderness with jagged snow-capped mountains, blue-ice glaciers, salmon, bears of various kinds, and of course, a lot of space.  While all of these things are to be found in what is rightly called the Last Frontier, it is also a place where marine debris is a very impactful and challenging problem. So what makes Alaska unique from other areas of the United States dealing with marine debris?

Alaska has a rugged and vast shoreline – more than the rest of the United States combined at over 44,000 miles, enough to circle the Earth almost twice at the equator – and incredible marine resources.  Open ocean currents and winter storms bring significant amounts of debris to Alaska’s shores every year.

Some areas with the highest debris density on record have been remote beaches.  For example, one beach at Gore Point on the Kenai Peninsula had over 25 tons of debris in less than a mile of shoreline when it was cleaned in 2007, enough to fill a 100-foot landing craft.  That compares with other cleanups in Alaska that have less than one ton per mile, which would still be very high for beaches in the Lower 48.  Plus, this area is pretty remote – the nearest landfill is at least a days’ travel away by boat, through seas that are rarely calm.

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This beach gives a good picture on the challenges of removal in Alaska and shows just how much debris can come from the open ocean when winds and currents combine to concentrate a lot of stuff in a very small area.  The combination of high density and low accessibility is a common theme in beach cleanups in Alaska, which actually makes it somewhat similar to the marine debris issue in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Another a unique element of debris cleanup in Alaska is the short field season.  Beaches are frequently inaccessible from October to April in southern Alaska.  In northern latitudes, beaches can be iced in as late as May.  This means that a lot of work needs to be done in a limited time frame, and with resources that are not only limited in terms of funding, but also availability – equipment and transportation are booked quickly, and so are volunteers.  While this means there is less time to do work, it also gives the marine debris community a good amount of time to analyze what was found and prepare for future seasons (part of why there are a lot more meetings in January than in June).

One of the key resources for this analysis comes from monitoring data.  This data is regularly collected using standardized protocols at sites that NOAA and partners, such as National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and multiple NGO’s, have established at locations scattered across the state.  Using a standardized method allows us to better understand and identify changes in composition and quantity – the “what” and “how much” of debris.  As an example, scientists at NOAA Auke Bay Laboratories compared survey data they collected in 2012 to 2008 data in order to show just how much the amount of Styrofoam and light plastics had increased – it turned out to be over 1,000% in some places!

This challenging environment has fostered an innovative and active marine debris community – Alaskans typically spend a lot of time out in the environment and value the quality of life and livelihood it provides.  Many techniques of debris detection, monitoring and cleanup have been pioneered in Alaska, from small plane surveys and helicopter sling-loading of debris to debris art and outreach.

As any Alaskan will rightly tell you, Alaska is a big place.  That’s true of the debris challenges and the opportunities for positive change.  These challenges emphasize the need for smart solutions to the marine debris problems, both in Alaska and worldwide, so we can keep shorelines and the marine environment pristine, productive and beautiful.