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Ocean Pollution: Causes, Effects, Solutions | TDS

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The impacts of ocean pollution are far-reaching. Take a look at the causes of ocean pollution, its effects, and the steps needed to combat it.

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The flow of plastics into our environment has reached crisis proportions, and the evidence is most clearly on display in our oceans. It is estimated that up to 12 million metric tons of plastic enter our ocean each year.

Our oceans are slowly turning into a plastic soup, and the effects on ocean life are chilling. Discarded plastic fishing lines entangle turtles and seabirds, and plastic pieces of all sizes choke and clog the stomachs of creatures who mistake it for food, from tiny zooplankton to whales. Plastic is now entering every level of the ocean food chain and is even ending up in the seafood on our plates.

Our planet can no longer tolerate a culture of throw-away plastics. Single-use plastics are filling up our landfills, choking our rivers, and contaminating our oceans. For far too long, corporations have put the onus on all of us to deal with their own failed design problem. We have been told that the individual should simply recycle away the billions of tons of plastics corporations produce and that it will make the difference needed to sustain our planet.

We have been told a lie.

Over 90% of plastics are not recycled. Recycling alone is simply never going to solve this problem. The scale of the problem corporations have created must be met with a fundamental shift in how they bring products to people. It is up to all of us to demand better - to tell these corporate giants that we will no longer tolerate the plastics they force upon us. Our world deserves better, and we don't need their products if they refuse to adapt.

It's time for us to reject the old corporate story that a throw-away lifestyle makes us happy. Nothing that is used for a few minutes should end up polluting our oceans for a lifetime.

With enough pressure from our supporters and allies around the world , the biggest companies like Coke, Pepsi, Starbucks, McDonald's, Unilever, Nestlé, and Procter & Gamble will embrace a better model through innovation and redesign. They will reject the old story, and rediscover how to produce and deliver goods in a way that respects our oceans and our planet.

Together, we can do better. We can bring about a simpler life without endless waste - a life where people and the planet flourish. Demand big corporations do their part to end plastic pollution!

What You Can Do

At Greenpeace, we think the industry plays a larger role than individuals. Why is it that something intended to be used for minutes is packaged in something that lasts forever? We're demanding that corporations take responsibility for the plastic pollution crisis and end the use of destructive single-use plastics and packaging. They have created this mess and must be held accountable. Here are the steps you can take now to end plastic pollution:

It is going to take commitments both large and small to tackle the scale of the plastic pollution crisis in front of us, and we all have a role to play. Every action to reduce single-use plastics sends a message to the industry that it's time to change. Use our Million Acts of Blue Toolkit to learn more about how you can take action and stop single-use plastic at its source!

Sign our petition demanding that the CEOs of seven of the largest producers of single-use plastics take responsibility for their products. Join us in letting executives at Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, McDonald's, and others know that we no longer want products made with single-use plastic packaging.

Document the single-use plastic pushed on you and use your social media to tell corporations enough is enough! You can share your images highlighting the problem in one of 3 ways:

On Facebook: Tag @GreenpeaceUSA and the brand responsible!

On Twitter: Use hashtags #PointlessPlastic, #RidiculousPackaging, #BreakFreeFromPlastic, and the brand responsible!

On Instagram: Tag @greenpeaceusa and the brand responsible!

Doing a trash clean up? Help us identify and expose the corporations contributing to plastic pollution on our beaches and in other natural areas by adding a brand audit to your cleanup!
Need more ideas? Here are more individual actions you can take on a daily basis to help solve this problem:

Refuse plastic whenever possible. Say no to straws, lids, plastic bags, and plastic takeaway containers. Carry your own utensils or a wooden spork and avoid using plastic utensils.

Review restaurants and cafes and recognize them when they avoid straws and plastic packaging - and let them know you want them to do better when they don't.

Use reusable water bottles, coffee mugs, and bags. Some retailers will even give you a discount for doing so!

If you forget your reusable coffee mug at a coffee shop, ask to have your coffee "for here" in a real mug and drink it there. Many coffee shops have ceramic mugs for customers, but they only use them upon request.

Tell your local supermarket that you won't buy produce wrapped in plastic. Purchase loose fruits and vegetables or shop at the farmers market.

Bring your own glass container or mesh baggies and buy grains, nuts, and other items in the bulk section.

Avoid items wrapped in excess plastic.

Replace plastic items at home with alternatives made from natural materials (bamboo toothbrushes, glass jars, wooden toys).

Whenever you see plastic in nature, collect it and recycle it if possible or put it in the trash can.

Talk trash with your friends, family, and colleagues! Share this website with them and show them photos and videos about plastic pollution on social media to help spread awareness about this global problem.

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Preventing Plastic Pollution - Greenpeace USA

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The flow of plastics into our environment has reached crisis proportions, and the evidence is most clearly on display in our oceans. It is estimated that up to 12 million metric tons of plastic enter our ocean each year. Our oceans are slowly turning into a plastic soup, and the effects on ocean life ...

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The Ocean Foundation - Helping Ocean Environments Around the World

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As the only community foundation for the ocean, we're dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world.

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THE OCEANS ARE so vast and deep that until fairly recently, it was widely assumed that no matter how much trash and chemicals humans dumped into them, the effects would be negligible.

Today, we need look no further than the New Jersey-size dead zone that forms each summer in the Gulf of Mexico, or the thousand-mile-wide belt of plastic trash in the northern Pacific Ocean to see that this early "policy" placed a once flourishing ocean ecosystem on the brink of collapse.

Many "flavors" of marine pollution

Ocean water covers more than 70 percent of the Earth, and only in recent decades have we begun to understand how humans impact this watery habitat. Marine pollution, as distinct from overall water pollution, focuses on human-created products that enter the ocean.

Before 1972, humans around the word spewed trash, sewage sludge, and chemical, industrial, and radioactive wastes into the ocean with impunity. Millions of tons of heavy metals and chemical contaminants, along with thousands of containers of radioactive waste, were purposely thrown into the ocean.

The London Convention, ratified in 1975 by the United States, was the first international agreement to spell out better protection for the marine environment. The agreement implemented regulatory programs and prohibited the disposal of hazardous materials at sea. An updated agreement, the London Protocol, went into effect in 2006, more specifically banning all wastes and materials except for a short list of items, like leftover materials from dredging.

Many of these pollutants sink to the ocean's depths or float far distances from their original source, where they are consumed by small marine organisms and introduced into the global food chain. Marine pollution encompasses many types of pollution that disrupt the marine ecosystem, including chemical, light, noise, and plastic pollution.

Chemical pollution

Chemical pollution is the introduction of harmful contaminants. Common man-made pollutants that reach the ocean include pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, detergents, oil, industrial chemicals, and sewage.

Many ocean pollutants are released into the environment far upstream from coastlines. Nutrient-packed fertilizers applied to farmland, for example, often end up in local streams and are eventually deposited into estuaries and bays. These excess nutrients trigger massive blooms of algae that rob the water of oxygen, leaving dead zones where few marine organisms can live. Some chemical pollutants climb high into the food webs-like DDT, the insecticide that placed the bald eagle on the United States Fish and Wildlife's endangered species list.

Scientists are starting to better understand how specific pollutants, leached into the ocean from other materials, affect marine wildlife. PFAS, a chemical incorporated into many household products, accumulates in human and marine mammal blood. Even pharmaceuticals ingested by humans, but not fully processed by our bodies, end up in aquatic food webs.

Light pollution

Since the invention of the lightbulb, light has spread across the globe, reaching almost every ecosystem. Often thought of as a terrestrial problem, scientists are starting to understand how artificial light at night affects many marine organisms.

Light pollution penetrates under the water, creating a vastly different world for fish living in shallow reefs near urban environments. Light disrupts the normal cues associated with circadian rhythms, to which species have evolved timing of migration, reproducing, and feeding. Artificial light at night can make it easier for predators to find smaller fish prey and can affect breeding in reef fish.

Noise pollution

Pollution is not always visible. In large bodies of water, sound waves can carry undiminished for miles. The increased presence of loud or persistent sounds from ships, sonar devices, and oil rigs disrupts natural noises in the marine environment.

For many marine mammals, like whales and dolphins, low visibility and large distances make non-visual underwater communication critical. Toothed whales use echolocation-emitting sounds that reflect off surfaces-to help them "see" in the ocean. Unnatural noises interrupt communication, disrupting migration, communication, hunting, and reproduction patterns for many marine animals.

Plastic pollution

Plastic pollution seeps into the ocean through run-off and even purposeful dumping. The amount of plastic in the Atlantic Ocean has tripled since the 1960s. The garbage patch floating in the Pacific Ocean, almost 620,000 square miles- twice the size of Texas -is a powerful image of our plastic problem.

A huge culprit is single-use plastics, used once before tossed into the trash or directly into the ocean. These single-use items are accidentally consumed by many marine mammals. Plastic bags resemble jellyfish, a common food for sea turtles, while some seabirds eat plastic because it releases a chemical that makes it smell like its natural food. Discarded fishing nets drift for years, ensnaring fish and mammals.

Bits of plastic swirl throughout the water column, even sinking to the deepest depths of the ocean. Scientists found plastic fibers in corals in the Atlantic Ocean-and more concerning, they found that the corals readily ate plastic over food. Dying marine mammals, washing up on shore, also contain plastic inside their stomachs.

Is there a "fix" to marine pollution?

Many national laws, as well as international agreements, now forbid dumping of harmful materials into the ocean, although enforcing these regulations remains a challenge.

Many pollutants still persist in the environment, difficult to fully remove. Chemical pollutants often cannot be broken down for long periods of time, or they increase in concentration as they move up the food web. Because plastic is thought to take hundreds of years to break down, it poses a threat to the marine environment for centuries.

Isolated efforts to restore estuaries and bays have met with some success, but pollution gets trapped in marine sediment and makes complete clean-ups nearly impossible.

Moving forward, encouraging recycling and reuse can minimize plastic pollution. Dampening unnecessary lights at night can limit light pollution. And encouraging responsible chemical-use through consumer and political actions can protect the environment for the future.

National Geographic is committed to reducing plastics pollution. Learn more about our non-profit activities at natgeo.org/plastics. Learn what you can do to reduce your own single-use plastics, and take your pledge.

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THE OCEANS ARE so vast and deep that until fairly recently, it was widely assumed that no matter how much trash and chemicals humans dumped into them, the effects would be negligible.

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Covering more than 70 percent of our planet, oceans are among the earth's most valuable natural resources. They govern the weather, clean the air, help feed the world, and provide a living for millions. They also are home to most of the life on earth, from microscopic algae to the blue whale, the largest animal on the planet. Yet we're bombarding them with pollution. By their very nature-with all streams flowing to rivers, and all rivers leading to the sea-the oceans are the end point for so much of the pollution we produce on land, however far from the coasts we may be. And from dangerous carbon emissions and choking plastic to leaking oil and constant noise, the types of ocean pollution that humans generate are vast. As a result, collectively, our impact on the seas is degrading their health at an alarming rate. Here are some ocean pollution facts that everyone on our blue planet ought to know.

Ocean acidification

When we burn fossil fuels, we don't pollute just the air but the oceans too. Indeed, today's seas absorb as much as a quarter of all man-made carbon emissions, which changes the pH of surface waters and leads to acidification (pH is a measure of how acidic or basic water is). This problem is rapidly worsening-oceans are now acidifying faster than they have in some 300 million years. In absorbing so much of the carbon emissions from the atmosphere, the pH level of the ocean surface has increased an estimated 30 percent since the start of the industrial revolution 200 years ago. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, the surface waters of the ocean could be nearly 150 percent more acidic by the end of the century.

So what happens when the ocean's chemistry is knocked out of whack? Marine ecosystems-and the coastal economies that depend on them-go out of whack too. Take reefs and shellfish, for starters. To build their shells and skeletons, creatures like mussels, clams, coral, and oysters require calcium carbonate (the same compound found in chalk and limestone). But the ocean's carbonate levels go down when acidity levels rise, threatening the survival of these animals. Bivalves are at the bottom of the food chain, so these effects ripple up to many fish, seabirds, and marine mammals. More-acidic waters also contribute to the bleaching of coral reefs and make it harder for some types of fish to sense predators and for others to hunt prey.

Meanwhile, ocean acidification threatens us land dwellers too. The billion-dollar American shellfish industry is the economic backbone of myriad coastal communities, from Louisiana to Maryland to Maine. In the Pacific Northwest, the shellfish that are vulnerable to ocean acidification make up more than 60 percent of the fishery revenue. In total, the U.S. shellfish industry could lose more than $400 million annually by 2100 due to impacts of ocean acidification.

Trash in the ocean

The majority of the garbage that enters the ocean each year is plastic-and here to stay. That's because unlike other trash, the single-use plastic bags, water bottles, drinking straws, and yogurt containers, totalling some eight million metric tons of the plastic waste we toss (instead of recycling), won't biodegrade. Instead, they can persist in the environment for a millennium, polluting our beaches, entangling marine life, and getting ingested by fish, whales, turtles, and seabirds.

The most infamous example of marine debris is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But these patches (which are more like " soups") represent only a fraction of the trash in our oceans. In fact, plastic debris has been found at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench.

Where does all this debris originate? While some is dumped directly into the seas, 80 percent of marine litter makes its way there gradually from land-based sources―including those far inland―via storm drains, sewers, and other routes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Oil from boats, airplanes, cars, trucks, and even lawn mowers is contributing to water pollution circulating in ocean waters. (An excellent reason for why we should all reduce plastic pollution, no matter where we live.) Chemical discharges from factories, raw sewage overflow from water treatment systems, and stormwater and agricultural runoff add other forms of marine-poisoning pollutants to the toxic brew, contributing to algal blooms and aquatic dead zones.

Ocean noise

The ocean is far from being a " silent world." Sound waves travel farther and faster in the sea's dark depths than they do in the air, and many marine mammals like whales and dolphins, in addition to fish and other sea creatures, rely on communication by sound to find food, mate, and navigate. But an increasing barrage of human-generated ocean noise pollution is altering the underwater acoustic landscape, harming-and even killing-marine species worldwide.

Consider the incessant din of the roughly 60,000 commercial tanker and container ships that ply the seas at any given time. The underwater racket that results creates a kind of "smog" that reaches nearly every corner of the ocean and shrinks the sensory range of marine wildlife. High-intensity sonar used by the U.S. Navy for testing and training causes some of the same effects-and has been linked to mass whale strandings.

Meanwhile, in the hunt for offshore oil and gas, ships equipped with high-powered airguns fire compressed air into the water every 10 to 12 seconds for weeks to months on end. Traveling as far as 2,500 miles, these deafening seismic blasts disrupt foraging, mating, and other vital behaviors of endangered whales (and may ultimately push some, such as the North Atlantic right whale, to extinction). The blasts lead some commercial fish species to abandon their habitat-a direct hit on coastal economies dependent on catch rates; they also injure and kill marine invertebrates, including scallops, crabs, and squid.

Offshore drilling

In addition to noise pollution, the oil and gas industry's routine operations emit toxic by-products, release high levels of greenhouse gases, and lead to thousands of spills in U.S. waters annually. That oil can linger for decades and do irreversible damage to delicate marine ecosystems. Take the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound, from which oil still remains, or the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling disaster, which spread millions of gallons of oil throughout the Gulf of Mexico, imposing a heavy toll on coastal communities. But smaller spills also pollute the ocean (and the air) with long-lasting impacts. Even the most advanced cleanup efforts remove only a fraction of the oil, and sometimes they use hazardous technologies. Chemical dispersants used in the largest spill response efforts-1.8 million gallons were released into the Gulf after the BP disaster-are dangerous pollutants themselves.

NRDC works to defend our oceans

From the earliest days of NRDC's founding, we've advocated-and litigated-to protect the world's oceans. As political tides changed in Congress and the White House, NRDC has been steadfast in our defense of policies that protect marine species, as well as coastal communities and their ocean-based economies. In addition to advocating for climate policies that will ensure the health of marine ecosystems, NRDC has played a key role in halting offshore drilling and seismic blasting in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, in the creation of the Atlantic's first marine national monument, and in the push for more sustainable, ethical seafood. Today, we're part of a growing coalition calling for governments to fully and highly protect at least 30 percent of our oceans by 2030 (part of what's known as " 30x30 ") to help safeguard the marine ecosystems and fisheries that provide food, jobs, and cultural sustenance to billions around the world.

Ocean pollution and you

The fate of our seas is not only up to the government or industry. Our individual, daily actions matter too. You can start by reducing water pollution and runoff at home, being more mindful of your plastic consumption, or organizing a cleanup of your local waterway. You can also support the work of NRDC and other environmental advocacy groups as well as businesses and organizations that work to preserve our coasts and waters.
This story was originally published on January 22, 2018, and has been updated with new information and links.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can't resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can't republish our material wholesale or automatically-you need to select stories individually; you can't republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should to let us know when you've used one of our stories.

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Ocean pollution in the form of fossil fuels, trash, offshore drilling, and noise is harming marine life. Learn what you can do to reduce harm to our oceans.

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The ocean remains one of the most expansive, mysterious and diverse places on Earth. Unfortunately, it is being threatened by pollution from people on land and natural causes. Marine life is dying, and as a result, the whole oceanic ecosystem is threatened simply by various sources of pollution. If we are to preserve the ocean and its natural beauty, drastic measures have to be taken to combat this pollution and keep what we hold most dear.

Before, it was assumed that because the ocean was so big, vast and deep, that the effects of dumping trash and litter into the sea would only have minimal consequences. But as we have seen, this has proven not to be the case. While all five oceans have suffered as a result of human consequence for over millennia by now, it has accelerated in the past few decades. Oil spills, toxic wastes, floating plastic and various other factors have all contributed to the pollution of the ocean.

Wikipedia defines ocean pollution as,

" Marine pollution occurs when harmful, or potentially harmful, effects result from the entry into the ocean of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste, noise, or the spread of invasive organisms. Most sources of marine pollution are land-based. The pollution often comes from nonpoint sources such as agricultural runoff, wind-blown debris and dust."

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.

~ Jacques Cousteau

"Did you know that approximately 1.4 billion pounds of trash per year enter the ocean?" Source: NOAA

35 Surprising Facts About Ocean Pollution

Simply put, the ocean cannot continue to thrive as a dumpsite for people. While the state of the ocean's pollution may not come as any sort of surprise to many people, the following cold hard facts might:

Fact 1: Plastic is the most common element that is found in the ocean. It is harmful to the environment as it does not get break down easily and is often mistaken as food by marine animals.

Fact 2: At least 8 million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year. That's similar to emptying a garbage truck of plastic into an ocean every minute.

Fact 3: Plastic pollution is one of the most serious threats to the ocean. Plastic does not degrade; instead, it breaks down into progressively smaller pieces, known as microplastic (smaller than 5 mm) by sun exposure and wave action. Then it can find its way into the food chain but never disappears.

Plastic debris can absorb toxic chemicals from ocean pollution, therefore poisoning whatever eats it. It poses a significant health threat to the various sea creatures and the entire marine ecosystem.

Fact 4: There is more microplastic in the ocean than there are stars in the Milky Way.

Fact 5: Over 100,000 marine animals die every year from plastic entanglement and ingestion. More than 50 percent of sea turtles have consumed plastic.

Fact 6: There's so much junk at sea that the debris has formed giant garbage patches. The term "garbage patch" is a large area actually made up of debris ranging in size, from microplastics to large bundles of derelict fishing gear and other marine debris collects.

These patches are formed by large, rotating ocean currents called gyres that pull debris into one location, often to the gyre's center. The debris forming garbage patches can be found from the surface of the ocean all the way to the ocean floor.

Fact 7: There are five gyres in the ocean, one in the Indian Ocean, two in the Atlantic Ocean, and two in the Pacific Ocean. The largest is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Fact 8: There is an island of garbage twice the size of Texas inside the Pacific Ocean: the North Pacific Gyre off the coast of California includes an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash. There, the number of floating plastic pieces outnumbers total marine life by six to one in the immediate vicinity.

Fact 9: In fact, plastic is the number one source of pollution in the ocean. When plastic eventually degrades, which is around 400 years for most plastic, the process releases chemicals that further contaminate the sea.

Fact 10: Plastic in the ocean comes from China and Indonesia more than anywhere else, and they account for one-third of plastic pollution. In fact, 80% of plastic pollution comes from just 20 countries, including the United States.

Fact 11: The biggest source of pollution in the ocean is directly from land-based sources, such as oil, dirt, septic tanks, farms, ranches, motor vehicles, among larger sources. Thousands of tons of waste and trash are dumped into the ocean on a daily basis.

Fact 12: Over one million seabirds are killed by ocean pollution each year. Three hundred thousand dolphins and porpoises die each year as a result of becoming entangled in discarded fishing nets, among other items. One hundred thousand sea mammals are killed in the ocean by pollution each year.

Fact 13: Even though mostly the trash and waste dumped into the ocean is released hundreds of miles away from land, it still washes up on beaches and coastal areas, and affects everything in between. Every marine animal is affected by man-made chemicals released in the water.

Fact 14: Oil is the fastest source of deterioration to the ocean, being far more harmful than trash and waste. However, only a small percentage of oil (around 12%) dumped in the ocean comes as a result of actual oil spills. Most oil causing harm in the ocean is a result of drainage from the land.

Fact 15: Oil spills suffocate marine life to death, and leads to behavioral changes and a breakdown in thermal insulation to those that do survive. It essentially changes the entire ecosystem of an affected area, such as a long coastline or deep ocean.

Fact 16: Toxic metals can destroy biochemistry, behavior, reproduction, and growth in marine life.

Fact 17: Microfibers also cause much pollution. With each load of laundry, more than 700,000 synthetic microfibers are washed into our waterways. Unlike natural materials such as cotton or wool, these synthetic microfibers make up as much as 85 percent of all beach trash that do not break down.

Fact 18: Not all sources of contamination in the ocean come from just oil, trash and solid wastes. The dumping of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors, industrial race (such as heavy metals and acids), and drained sewage are also heavy contributors to pollution.

Fact 19: Littering causes pollution in the ocean, which also causes a substantial loss of life beneath the seas. The truth is that billions of tons of litter end up in the ocean each year, and it is substantially more than the 250 million tons of trash generated. This has led to a gradual loss in marine life and an increase in the number of endangered species.

Fact 20: There is also much noise in the ocean. Noise pollution created by shipping and military activity can cause cellular damage to a class of invertebrates that includes jellyfish and anemones. These animals are a major food source for tuna, sharks, sea turtles and other creatures.

Fact 21: Sewage leads to the decomposition of organic matter that, in turn, leads to a change in biodiversity. Even if the ocean's ecosystem isn't destroyed entirely, it is still changed drastically, and often not for the better.

Fact 22: Fertilizer runoff creates eutrophication that flourishes algal bloom in aquatic systems. Harmful algal blooms (HABs), also known as " red tides," grow rapidly and produce toxic effects that can affect marine life and sometimes even humans, which depletes the oxygen content in the water that affects marine life.

Fact 23: In several parts of the world, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic Sea, Eutrophication has created enormous dead zones that can result in mass die-offs of fish and other marine life, making those zones impossible for marine or plant life.

Fact 24: The dead zones are growing in number. In 2004, scientists counted 146 hypoxia or dead zones, areas of such low oxygen concentration that animal life suffocates and dies, in the world's oceans. By 2008, that number increased to 405. In 2017, in the Gulf of Mexico, oceanographers detected the largest dead zone ever measured, nearly the size of New Jersey.

Fact 25: Small animals at the bottom of the food chain absorb the chemicals as part of their food. These small animals are then eaten by larger animals that again increase the concentration of chemicals. Animals at the top of the hierarchy of the food chain have contamination levels millions of times higher than the water in which they live.

Fact 26: People get contaminated easily by eating contaminated seafood that can cause serious health problems, from cancer to damage to the immune system.

Fact 27: The ocean pollution is more common in waters more than 2,000 feet deep, with the most common plastic bags, metal cans, fishing equipment, glass bottles, shoes, tires, etc.

Fact 28: The garbage like plastic bottles, aluminum cans, shoes, packaging material - if not disposed of correctly, can reach the sea, and the same garbage can again reach the seashore where it pollutes beaches and affects the local tourism industry.

Fact 29: Salty water of the ocean has the capability to move pollutants from the ocean to coastal freshwater, making wells and groundwater contaminated.

Fact 30: Chemicals from industries and mines can also enter the ocean through land-based activities. They can seep through soil, water or land either during their manufacture, use or accidental leaks. From soil, water or land, they can enter into ocean currents and can travel longer distances.

Fact 31: As 70% of the earth is covered with water, people actually assumed that all pollutants would be diluted and get disappeared. But in reality, they have not disappeared, and their effects can be easily seen as they have entered the food chain.

Fact 32: Until the 1970s, the chemicals and garbage were deliberately dumped into the oceans and became common practice for disposing of everything, including pesticides and radioactive waste, assuming that it would get dissolved to safe levels.

Fact 33: Till today, in many parts of the world, sewage water is discharged in the ocean - untreated or under-treated. This can have a serious effect on marine and human life and can also lead to eutrophication.

Fact 34: We cannot see ocean pollution because most ocean trash sits on the bottom, and it may be worse. Almost 70 percent of ocean garbage actually sinks to the seafloor for which we're unlikely ever to be able to clean it up.

Fact 35: One effect of greenhouse emissions is increased ocean acidification, which makes the oceans lose mussel mass. It is becoming more difficult for bivalves such as mussels, clams and oysters to form shells, decreasing their likelihood of survival, upsetting the food chain and affecting the shellfish industry of multibillion-dollar.
References: National Geographic

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35 Surprising Facts About Ocean Pollution That Might Scare You - Conserve Energy Future

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The ocean remains one of the most expansive, mysterious and diverse places on Earth. Unfortunately, it is being threatened by pollution from people on land and natural causes. Marine life is dying, and as a result, the whole oceanic ecosystem is threatened simply by various sources of pollution.

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Ocean pollution: 11 facts you need to know

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With each passing year, we expose the ocean to more pollutants, from trash to chemicals. Fortunately, it’s not too late to clean up our act.

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Image

stockphoto-graf/shutterstock

Marine pollution is a growing problem in today's world. Our ocean is being flooded with two main types of pollution: chemicals and trash.

Chemical contamination, or nutrient pollution, is concerning for health, environmental, and economic reasons. This type of pollution occurs when human activities, notably the use of fertilizer on farms, lead to the runoff of chemicals into waterways that ultimately flow into the ocean. The increased concentration of chemicals, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, in the coastal ocean promotes the growth of algal blooms, which can be toxic to wildlife and harmful to humans. The negative effects on health and the environment caused by algal blooms hurt local fishing and tourism industries.

Marine trash encompasses all manufactured products-most of them plastic-that end up in the ocean. Littering, storm winds, and poor waste management all contribute to the accumulation of this debris, 80 percent of which comes from sources on land. Common types of marine debris include various plastic items like shopping bags and beverage bottles, along with cigarette butts, bottle caps, food wrappers, and fishing gear. Plastic waste is particularly problematic as a pollutant because it is so long-lasting. Plastic items can take hundreds of years to decompose.

This trash poses dangers to both humans and animals. Fish become tangled and injured in the debris, and some animals mistake items like plastic bags for food and eat them. Small organisms feed on tiny bits of broken-down plastic, called microplastic, and absorb the chemicals from the plastic into their tissues. Microplastics are less than five millimeters (0.2 inches) in diameter and have been detected in a range of marine species, including plankton and whales. When small organisms that consume microplastics are eaten by larger animals, the toxic chemicals then become part of their tissues. In this way, the microplastic pollution migrates up the food chain, eventually becoming part of the food that humans eat.

Solutions for marine pollution include prevention and cleanup. Disposable and single-use plastic is abundantly used in today's society, from shopping bags to shipping packaging to plastic bottles. Changing society's approach to plastic use will be a long and economically challenging process. Cleanup, in contrast, may be impossible for some items. Many types of debris (including some plastics) do not float, so they are lost deep in the ocean. Plastics that do float tend to collect in large "patches" in ocean gyres. The Pacific Garbage Patch is one example of such a collection, with plastics and microplastics floating on and below the surface of swirling ocean currents between California and Hawaii in an area of about 1.6 million square kilometers (617,763 square miles), although its size is not fixed. These patches are less like islands of trash and, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, more like flecks of microplastic pepper swirling around an ocean soup. Even some promising solutions are inadequate for combating marine pollution. So-called "biodegradable" plastics often break down only at temperatures higher than will ever be reached in the ocean.

Nonetheless, many countries are taking action. According to a 2018 report from the United Nations, more than sixty countries have enacted regulations to limit or ban the use of disposable plastic items.

National Geographic Society

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Marine pollution is a combination of chemicals and trash, most of which comes from land sources and is washed or blown into the ocean. This pollution results in damage to the environment, to the health of all organisms, and to economic structures worldwide.

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Ocean pollution poses a clear and present danger to human health and well-being, according to a from an international group of researchers. The study sounds the alarm that the growing global problem, which scientists are only beginning to understand, requires urgent and immediate action. It is a call to mobilize, say the authors who offer a path forward via pollution prevention and research recommendations.

"Ocean pollution is a widespread, worsening, and poorly controlled problem that is directly affecting human and ecosystem health," said lead study author Philip Landrigan, M.D., director of the Boston College Global Observatory on Pollution and Health. "It is a complex mix of toxins that, until now, has not received the systematic attention it deserves."

The study, funded in part by NIEHS and coordinated by the Centre Scientifique de Monaco with support from the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, is the first comprehensive examination of the impacts of ocean pollution on human health.

An Unjust Burden

Covering more than two-thirds of the planet, the oceans provide food, livelihoods, and cultural and recreational value to billions around the world. Ocean pollution, which stems primarily from human activities, threatens these many benefits.

More than 80% of ocean pollution comes from land-based sources, making its way to the seas through runoff, rivers, atmospheric deposition, and direct discharges. It is most highly concentrated along the coasts of low- and middle-income countries.

"Ocean pollution is deeply unjust. Its impacts fall most heavily on low-income countries, coastal fishing communities, people on small island nations, indigenous populations, and people in the high Arctic - groups that for the most part produce very little pollution themselves," explained Landrigan. "These populations rely on the oceans for food. Their survival depends on the health of the seas."

Multiple Pollutants, Multiple Health Effects

Ocean pollution is a complex mixture made up of mercury, plastic waste, manufactured chemicals, petroleum wastes, agricultural runoff, and biological threats, like harmful algal blooms. People are exposed to these toxins mainly by eating contaminated seafood.

Coal combustion is the major source of mercury pollution in the oceans. When coal is burned, mercury enters the atmosphere and eventually washes down into the sea. The authors noted that when a pregnant woman eats mercury-contaminated fish, the mercury can damage her child's developing brain resulting in IQ loss and behavior problems. In adults, consumption of mercury-contaminated fish increases risk for heart disease and dementia.

Plastic waste makes up an estimated 80% of marine pollution. About 10 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, killing seabirds, fish, and marine mammals. It breaks down into smaller pieces called microplastics that absorb a range of chemicals floating in the marine environment, including pesticides and toxic metals. These chemical-laden particles are ingested by fish and shellfish and then passed on to seafood consuming humans. Microplastics may harm marine and human health, but the risks are still largely unknown.

"There's a lot of work needed to better understand the composition, toxicity, and potential human health impacts of microplastics, but it's likely that it's pretty substantial," said Landrigan.

The chemicals used to manufacture a range of products, from consumer goods and food packaging to cleaning products and pesticides, also end up in the seas. The authors wrote that of the thousands of manufactured chemicals and chemical mixtures that pollute the world's oceans, humans are most likely to be exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated substances, and pesticides through eating contaminated seafood. These chemicals have been shown to cause a wide range of health effects in humans such as cardiovascular disease, developmental and neurobehavioral disorders, metabolic disease, immune dysfunction, endocrine disruption, and cancers.

Algae are essential components of aquatic food webs and ecosystems. But too much of a good thing can be toxic. Harmful algal blooms (HAB) occur when toxin-producing algae grow excessively in ocean waters. Warming sea waters make formerly unsuitable habitats habitable, leading to a range expansion of HAB species and the human populations they affect. Industrial waste, agricultural runoff, pesticides, and human sewage can all spur a HAB event. People are exposed to HAB toxins from eating contaminated fish and shellfish. These toxins can cause dementia, amnesia, other neurological damage, and death.

Climate Change Magnifies the Problem

"Ocean pollution and climate change are both components of planetary health. The two problems largely arise from the same source: the combustion of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and gas that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That in turn leads to a whole series of problems," said Landrigan.

For example, a warmer climate melts glaciers and permafrost, freeing legacy pollutants from ice. Rising sea temperatures increase the number and expand the range of marine microbes that can cause disease. As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase, so too does the amount that oceans absorb. This results in more acidic waters that can erode coral reefs and calcium containing organisms such as plankton that are the base of the marine food chain. Ocean acidification can also increase the toxicity of certain heavy metals and chemicals.

A Path Forward

The authors close with optimism and offer a series of case studies, policy, and research recommendations to save the planet's oceans.

"The key thing to realize about ocean pollution is that, like all forms of pollution, it can be prevented using laws, policies, technology, and enforcement actions that target the most important pollution sources," said Landrigan.

The authors call for eliminating coal combustion to reduce ocean bound mercury pollution and a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Banning single-use plastics, like straws and plastic bags, can reduce the amount of plastic pollution entering oceans. Controlling coastal pollution and expanding Marine Protected Areas, sometimes call the "national parks of the ocean," can safeguard critical ecosystems, protect vulnerable fish stocks, and improve human health and well-being.

"Many countries have used these tools and have successfully cleaned fouled harbors, rejuvenated estuaries, and restored coral reefs. The results have been increased tourism, restored fisheries, improved human health, and economic growth. These benefits will last for centuries."

A Role for Research

On the research side, the authors stress that a better understanding of the human health impacts of ocean pollution can provide the evidence base needed to inform protective policies. Among the research priorities, they call for improved ocean pollution monitoring, studies of human exposure to ocean pollutants and health effect biomarkers, and a better understanding of the effects of exposure to multiple ocean pollutants.

"There is a real need to better understand how exposure to mixtures, like ocean pollution, affect health. This is one area where I see the environmental health community playing a role in advancing ocean pollution and human health research," said John Stegeman, Ph.D., second author on the paper and director of the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health, which is co-funded by NIEHS and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Another skill set environmental health scientists bring to the table is community engagement. "Globally, there is a need to involve communities and medical professionals in oceans research. NIEHS has long recognized the benefit of community engagement, and its grantees have developed community engagement best practices that could be key in helping us better understand and prevent ocean pollution exposures," said Stegeman.

NIEHS has supported research on marine-related health issues since the 1970s. Grantees are studying coastal populations to better understand how people are exposed to ocean pollutants and health effects of exposure. They are exploring how climate change affects distribution and toxicity of HABs and developing sensors and technologies to better predict HAB events and prevent exposure. In 2004, NIEHS and the NSF launched the Centers for Oceans and Human Health program that funds interdisciplinary research centers around the country.

Stegeman concluded that "Understanding ocean pollution is a highly interdisciplinary endeavor. In our center, we have basic biomedical scientists, toxicologists, biological and physical oceanographers, environmental modelers, chemists, and engineers all working together. It takes a collaborative environment like that created through the NIEHS-NSF Centers for Oceans and Human Health program to fully understand how our oceans impact human health."

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New Study Finds Ocean Pollution a Threat to Human Health

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Ocean pollution poses a clear and present danger to human health and well-being, according to a from an international group of researchers. The study sounds the alarm that the growing global problem, which scientists are only beginning to understand, requires urgent and immediate action.