Garbage piling up beneath Monterey Bay, says MBARI

Posted:   06/05/2013 By Jason Hoppin in the Santa Cruz Sentinel

Click photo to enlarge

A young rockfish hides in a discarded shoe 1,548 feet deep in San Gabriel... ( (c) 2010 MBARI )

MOSS LANDING -- Look out across Monterey Bay, and one hardly thinks of a junkyard. But below the surface, decades of garbage have been piling up, a new study by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute shows.

Go 1,000 meters down, and it's still there. Go a mile down, it's still there. Go two miles down and beyond -- down to the limits of scientific exploration -- and it's still there. Old boots, tires, fishing gear and especially plastic, litter the ocean floor.

"Once it gets in the ocean, it's not going to get cleaned up," said Susan von Thun, a senior research technician at MBARI. "Especially with plastic or metal, it doesn't really break down. It'll be there for possibly thousands of years."

The study is based on 22 years of deep-sea video accumulated and cataloged by marine researchers. They decided to search their database and came up with more than 1,150 hits for human-produced garbage in the Monterey Bay region alone, much of it within the boundaries of a national marine sanctuary.

While there have been some eye-popping finds -- a shipping container full of 10,000 steel-belted tires lies at the bottom of the bay -- about a third of the findings were plastic, with about half of those being plastic bags.

PLASTIC POLLUTION

That goes to the heart of an ongoing debate about single-use plastic bags, with the plastics industry recently helping defeat a proposed statewide bag ban, as well as a second bill, by Assemblymember Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, aimed at getting plastics producers to help cut back on pollution.

When the bag ban was defeated by three votes, the industry group American Progressive Bag Alliance hailed its victory, saying the proposal was based on "unfounded stats, junk science and myths."

Dave Asselin, executive director of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, reiterated the group's position in a statement Wednesday.

"We have not had a chance to review this particular study, but we do know that the rationale behind efforts to ban or tax plastic bags is largely based off of junk science and exaggerations," Asselin said.

The study is far more exhaustive that any prior examination of debris on the ocean floor, with MBARI's submarines routinely plumbing depths rarely seen by human eyes. Whether it makes a difference in the political debate about plastic bags remains to be seen. Wednesday, Stone held a previously scheduled legislative hearing that dealt with plastics and the marine environment.

Laura Kasa, executive director of Santa Cruz-based Save Our Shores, a group that holds beach cleanups throughout the region, said the study is another sign that plastic bags need to be banned.

"This is why it's so important that we prevent trash that people leave on the beach from getting into the ocean," Kasa said. "If one person doesn't think that it makes a difference, if they leave their piece of trash on the beach, they're wrong. It'll end up in the bottom of the ocean."

Von Thun said researchers combed through video for instances where marine life interacted with plastic and found several. They include plastic bags wrapped around deep coral -- which eventually will kill the coral -- and debris serving as habitat for anemonies and other marine life, giving them a home in areas they would not normally settle.

The study also found plastics and metals were more likely to be found in deeper waters, and researchers speculated that because Monterey Bay is a national sanctuary and subject to heightened environmental protections, it is likely that oceans elsewhere have a more significant problem.

"I was surprised that we saw so much trash in deeper water. We don't usually think of our daily activities as affecting life two miles deep in the ocean," said Kyra Schlining, the study's lead author. "I'm sure that there's a lot more debris in the canyon that we're not seeing."

Follow Sentinel reporter Jason Hoppin at Twitter.com/scnewsdude

Read another article about the Monterey Bay Findings in Mother Earth News:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/trash-that-litters-ocean-floor-is-mostly-recyclables

EarthTalk: "All One Ocean" campaign

By EarthTalk | Posted: Thursday, June 6, 2013 9:40 am on the Hour.com
 
Dear EarthTalk: What is the “All One Ocean” campaign?  --Bill O’Neill, Los Angeles, CA




Bo Eide, courtesy Flickr

All One Ocean is a non-profit campaign launched in 2010 by long-time author, activist and organizer Hallie Austen Iglehart with the goal of reducing the amount of plastic and other trash that ends up in the ocean where it compromises the health of marine wildlife and ecosystems. Iglehart was incensed to learn that a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die each year from ingesting plastic in the water column—and created All One Ocean to do something about it.

Contrary to popular myth that most ocean pollution is oil spilled from ships, most of it is land-based litter. “The most dangerous litter is our throw-away plastic because of its longevity and capacity to increase in toxicity, eventually returning to the human food chain in a more lethal form,” reports Iglehart.

“Much of our plastic ends up in the ocean in giant collections of trash called gyres, created by circular ocean currents,” she adds. “They trap debris for decades where it continues to break into ever smaller, more toxic pieces, never fully biodegrading.” Of particular concern to Iglehart is the fact that much of this carelessly discarded plastic winds up in the bellies of marine life, contaminating not just ocean ecosystems but in some cases the very seafood on our dinner plates.

The main project of All One Ocean is the creation and maintenance of permanent, community supported Beach Clean Up Stations, which are essentially boxes containing reusable bags for beach visitors to use in picking up trash during their time on the sand and in the surf. The idea is to empty any garbage into a trash can somewhere (so it can find its way to a landfill instead of out into the ocean) and then ideally return the bag empty to the box. Each clean-up station also provides a sign with information on the extent of the problem and other ways individuals can help. The idea, according to Iglehart, is to provide “a simple, doable way for people to have fun cleaning up trash as they enjoy their beach activities.”

“The Beach Clean Up Station is a practical way to insure that clean up is happening everyday on all our beaches,” says Iglehart. “Like ‘adopt a highway’ campaigns, Beach Clean Up Stations create community around care for and education about these clean up hubs.”

She would like to see Beach Clean Up Stations in place at coastal and even freshwater beaches all around the world, but for now the group is starting out in Northern California. The first one was put in place at Limantour Beach at the Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County there, with several following at other San Francisco Bay area beaches. Iglehart hopes the campaign will encourage people to reconsider their consumption of single use plastics, since the production and distribution of such items contributes not just to the demise of the oceans but also to increased global warming.

Unlike many environmental issues that seem beyond our control, cleaning up beaches is something anyone can do and indeed every little bit helps. “Every tiny piece of human trash picked up,” Iglehart reminds us, “is one less toxin in someone’s stomach.”

CONTACT: All One Ocean, www.alloneocean.org.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Why We Should All Make a Promise This World Oceans Day

Posted: 06/06/2013 in the Huffington Post by Maria Sowter


Held annually on the 8th June, World Oceans Day, aims to change people's perspectives and habits by educating them about the importance the ocean holds for the Earth. Events both online and offline across the globe celebrate the ocean as a unique source of life that connects us all on this planet.

This World Oceans Day (WOD), we're being asked to make one ocean promise to help save the ocean and the species that exist within it. Across the world people are making pledges to eat only sustainably sourced seafood, or to reduce the amount of water they waste. Others are focusing on reducing the pollution they create by using less plastic and electricity and by recycling or reusing what they own. By making a commitment to do just one thing for a year to help reduce their impact on the environment, people are embodying the 2013 theme of WOD - that we can all work together to save the world's oceans. Through use of social media and the hashtag #WorldOceansDay, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have all played an important part in connecting people to the cause, and are filled with photos of people holding signs of their promises.

Plastic pollution is a main source of concern for environmentalists when it comes to the world's oceans. Over 220 million tons of plastic are produced each year, much of which ends up as waste and ends up straying into the sea, harming wildlife and polluting earth's waters. What happens to this plastic has devastating effects on marine ecosystems and species. The North Pacific Gyre exists between North America and Japan and contains an estimated 3.5 million tons of rubbish debris, making it the world's largest landfill the size of Europe. Elsewhere, marine species such as sea turtles ingest floating plastic mistaking it for food, or become trapped in it. Plastic is the cause of more than a million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammal deaths each year, whilst research has found that fish ingest an estimate of 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic per year in the Pacific Ocean which ends up in the human food chain.

Marine conservation projects across the globe have for a long-time worked to conserve the diverse flora and fauna of our underwater world. Projects that record the state of marine ecosystems, promote sustainability and work to help conserve numbers of endangered species, such as sea turtles, are vital in protecting the world's oceans. Voluntourism projects are part of this change as they educate a wide audience as to the importance of marine conservation, as well as provide invaluable manpower where needed. The ocean covers roughly 70 per cent of the world's surface; it generates most of the oxygen we breathe, helps to regulate our climates, clean the water we drink, is a source for potential medicines, and feeds us. For many communities, the ocean is their main source of food and economic income, but the need to protect the world's ocean effects everyone and requires global attention in order to succeed.

Author Maria Sowter, whose WOD promise is to reduce her use of plastic bags, is Online Content Editor at Frontier, an international non-profit volunteering NGO that runs 320 conservation, community, and adventure projects in 57 countries across the globe. She can be found blogging on Frontier's Gap Year Blog or posting on the Frontier Official Facebook page.

DNV Designs Ship to Combat Plastic Pollution in World’s Oceans

 Posted on (PRWEB) June 06, 2013 

Aquatic pollution, particularly plastic litter, is a serious environmental threat on a scale similar to CO2 in the atmosphere.

Spindrift concept vessel

Plastic pollution in the ocean is everyone's problem.

By the end of this decade there will be an estimated 230 million tons of plastic polluting the world’s oceans, enough material to make 400 million two-liter beverage bottles. Plastic takes anywhere from 10 to 500 years to degrade in the ocean.

To call attention to this enormous but ‘quiet’ problem, DNV along with the World Wildlife Fund, has designed a revolutionary new ocean research vessel, the Spindrift, as part of a worldwide awareness-building effort.

"Like CO2, plastic pollution in the ocean is everyone's problem, and like CO2 all the solutions are not clearly visible at present," says Bjørn Haugland, DNV’s Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer. “This vessel concept will help us map the pollution concentrations of the world’s oceans and test the most efficient ways to remove as much plastic debris as possible, and to safely dispose of it.”

The Spindrift is an 85m single-hull vessel that can support 38 researchers for 90 days at sea. The ship is equipped from stem to stern with systems and ergonomics specifically engineered for finding and removing plastic litter from the ocean.

In addition to its research capabilities, the Spindrift can accommodate just about every debris collection technology now available. The flexibility of the concept will permit the vessel to accept new technologies and collection gear as they are developed.

For more information about the environmental issues of plastic in the world’s oceans, and to learn more about the Spindrift vessel concept, please visit http://www.dnv.com/plasticaquatic.

About DNV
DNV is a global provider of knowledge for managing risk. Today, safe and responsible business conduct is both a license to operate and a competitive advantage. Our core competence is to identify, assess, and advise on risk management. From our leading position in certification, classification, verification, and training, we develop and apply standards and best practices. This helps our customers safely and responsibly improve their business performance. DNV is an independent organization with dedicated risk professionals in more than 100 countries, with the purpose of safeguarding life, property and the environment.

Record-setting sailor's new voyage charts plastic polluting our oceans

Posted in OttawaCitizen.com by E.B. Furgurson Iii, The Associated Press May 27, 2013

In this May 6, 2013 photo, Matt Rutherford and scientist Nicole Trenholm pose for a photo on the R/V Ault, in Annapolis, Md. Rutherford and Trenholm are preparing for a 75 day research trip to gather plastics pollution data in the Sargasso Sea. (AP Photo/The Capital, Paul W. Gillespie)

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - So, how do you top setting a record as the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the Americas?

Work small and smart — again.

But this time, Matt Rutherford will have company.

Rutherford, who set foot on land in Annapolis last April after 309 days alone on a 27-foot sailboat, has organized the Ocean Research Project, a non-profit to enable scientific exploration of the oceans and other waters from a small-is-beautiful approach.

As soon as he gets his rigging squared away on the steel-hulled, 42-foot R/V Ault, he and his scientific partner Nicole Trenholm, will be off for a 6,500 nautical mile, 75-day cruise into the mid-Atlantic to gather plastics pollution data in the Sargasso Sea, and more.

"I am the captain — she is the science," he said.

Rutherford, who grew up in eastern Ohio, possesses seaworthy skills proven in his circumnavigation quest. Trenholm, a Bucks County, Pa. native, was of late working as a hydrographer for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, her office was a desk on a research vessel in the Chesapeake Bay.

Together they hope to prove the worthiness of marine research on a small scale.

After this voyage the Ocean Research Project will tackle something closer to home. They will collect data on oyster bars in the Rappahannock River. Using side-scan sonar and video, the project intends to both map oyster bars and get a solid look at the condition the oysters are in.

The next long voyage will be to the Northwest Passage in 2014. A vital part of that trip will be to gather data on acidic changes in Arctic waters.

"We are not trying to tell people this is a better way to do this research," Trenholm said. "This can be an extra resource to work with other organizations, all of us pulling in the same direction," to better understand changes in the ocean and the planet.

Rutherford said there could be a use for smaller platforms for research. "You might not need a big boat with a crew of 10 or 15," he said. Some projects with a larger craft and crew can have budgets of $10,000 or $15,000 a day. "Our daily budget for this trip is $73 a day."

Dennis Takahashi-Kelso, executive vice-president of the Ocean Conservancy, thinks a smaller research platform can be valuable.

"This is a small vessel and small crew, but it can be a big deal in terms of its usefulness," he said. With smaller equipment, he said a small vessel and crew can make measurements that "can be quite precise."
Sampling in the Sargasso Sea was an excellent choice because there much more study needed there, Takahashi-Kelso said.

For this Ocean Research Project's inaugural trip, the goal is to sail east to the far edge of the Sargasso, and work their way back — 600 miles south, then 600 miles north, collecting data along each leg.

On each leg they will be dragging a 20-foot wide net behind the R/V Ault, for an hour at a time to gather particles of plastics that have broken down in the ocean. They will measure the amount of material versus the amount of water that passes through the net.

"We will do that day and night, 24 hours a day," Rutherford said. "We will store the samples in Nalgene bottles to be analyzed when we get back." The analysis will help determine the amount of plastics in the ocean and the toxicity emitted from them. They will go preliminary processing of the samples and some will be analyzed by a laboratory in Japan.

They will also deploy two other devices. One will measure water conditions that will be sent back to NOAA's Atlantic Oceanic Meteorological Laboratory. The other looks like a stout wine bottle and will locate tagged fish species for the Ocean Tracking Network headquartered at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Scientists tag fish in order to analyze migration patterns.

"Technological advances have made the scientific equipment much smaller," Rutherford said. "And you can get good data for less cost."

To say the voyage will be spartan is an understatement.

"We won't be sipping wine in the Azores or drinking Dark and Stormy's in Bermuda," Rutherford said.

The menu on this cruise consists of freeze dried food, with a little freeze-dried food on the side.
Rutherford's favourite: "Creamy chicken noodle, with extra chicken."

"I'm bringing a jar of Nutella," Trenholm said. (They have bottle of homemade apple wine for the 4th of July.)

How about water? He hoped to get a donation for an automatic desalinization unit but no luck. "I hate to do it, but it looks like I'll have to use my manual water maker from the last trip. That will be tough; it takes 45 minutes to make a glass of water."

One section of the boat is already stocked with the freeze-dried cuisine, another with Nalgene sample bottles.

Two wind turbines will generate electricity. An AutoHelm wind vane will help steer to keep her on course.

Rutherford named the boat, which he bought for $35,000 in Florida, R/V Ault after the World War II destroyer his grandfather served on in the Pacific. "She's painted battleship grey, it seemed natural," he said. The R/V stands for research vessel.

The major hurdle to shoving off — a mast. A company had suggested it could do the work but got held up.

Rutherford brought the mast up to Port Annapolis where R/V Ault is docked, and threw a rigging party. "I'll buy the pizza and beer," he said. The boatyard's crane was on the fritz, but was expected to be repaired May 15.

Once the mast is in place, they'll be off on a 75-day trip.

That's a lot of time for two people who met four months ago.

The relationship is more than scientific. They met at the Oxford Yacht Club and later Trenholm indicated an interest in moving to Annapolis. From there both a personal and professional relationship blossomed.

Rutherford looks forward to having company after his solo voyage last time out.

"I guess if she doesn't hit me in the head with a winch handle, I'll be OK," Rutherford said.
"We had better get a second winch handle," Trenholm said.

Donations, both in kind and financial, for the work of the Ocean Research Project can be made at www.oceanresearchproject.org where the voyage can be tracked via real-time map and a weekly blog.

Top 10 items found during 2012 coastal cleanup

Posted in salon.com Friday, May 24, 2013 02:15 PM CST

 

File - In this Aug. 11, 2009 file photo provided by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows Matt Durham, center, pulling in a large patch of sea garbage with the help of Miriam Goldstein, right, in the Pacific Ocean. Plastics discarded by people often end up in the ocean, creating coastal pollution that harms marine life and gathers out at sea in what's become known as the great Pacific garbage patch. Now, California state lawmakers have introduced a law that if passed would require makers of plastic bottles, bags and packaging to replace plastics with more environmentally friendly alternatives. (AP Photo/ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Mario Aguilera, File)(Credit: AP)

 

The Ocean Conservancy, a Washington D.C.-based environmental organization, released its 2012 list of trash collected during its International Coastal Cleanup. More than 10 million pounds of debris was collected globally, with more than 769,000 pounds collected in California alone. The most common items found during the cleanup:

1. Cigarettes/Cigarette Filters: 2,117,931

2. Food Wrappers/Containers: 1,140,222

3. Plastic Beverage Bottles: 1,065,171

4. Plastic Bags: 1,019,902

5. Caps/Lids: 958,893

6. Cups, Plates, Forks, Knives, Spoons: 692,767

7. Straws/Stirrers: 611,048

8. Glass Beverage Bottles: 521,730

9. Beverage Cans: 339,875

10. Paper Bags: 298,332

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Source: Ocean Conservancy

Calif. plastic ocean debris bill dies in committee

Posted: May 24, 2013 3:08 AM CST Updated: May 24, 2013 5:48 PM CST

Published in khq.com By JASON DEAREN

Associated Press 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A California bill that would have required manufacturers to figure out how to keep the most common plastic junk out of state waterways died in the state Assembly without a vote Friday.

Assembly Bill 521 was before the chamber's Appropriations Committee, and the panel failed to act on it, effectively killing the legislation for the session. It had previously passed the Assembly Natural Resource Committee.

State Assemblyman Mark Stone, a D-Monterey Bay, one of the proposal's sponsors, was disappointed by the outcome.

"Plastic pollution will continue to harm our oceans and coastline, so Assemblymember Stone is committed to working on this problem," said Arianna Smith, Stone's legislative and communications director.

Once in the ocean, plastic takes ages to decompose. The manmade junk either collects into floating trash islands called "garbage patches," or it breaks into smaller pieces that harm and kill sea creatures throughout the food chain.

It's a complex problem with no easy fix, but some European countries have already implemented "extended producer responsibility" laws with some success.

AB521 would have required manufacturers to figure out how to reduce 95 percent of plastic pollution along the state's coastline by 2024. It carried financial penalties for companies that did not comply: up to $10,000 per day for the worst violations.

Assemblyman Eric Linder, R-Corona, said during Friday's Appropriations Committee meeting that he opposed the measure in part because it singled out one industry as the source of ocean pollution.

"I agree that cleaning up our oceans should be something that's very, very important to us, but this bill places the burden of compliance directly on the producers instead of the violators, the people who are littering," Linder said.

The regulation was just the latest California legislative attempt to address some of the world's toughest environmental problems, often at the expense of private business, critics say.

The state's large economy and population has already influenced automakers to produce cleaner burning cars, forced warning labels for toxic chemicals on a range of consumer products and put a price on heat-trapping carbon emissions from industrial sources.

"With nearly 40 million people in the state, what happens here matters whether it is cap-and-trade and renewable energy portfolio standards, solid waste reduction, water conservation," said Mark Gold, associate director of the University of California, Los Angeles Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

"What happens in California matters both nationally and globally," he added.

Gold said legislation won't solve the plastic pollution problem, but could have a wide-ranging effect. The failed proposal could have been the first significant legislation in the U.S. to try to reduce the amount of plastic junk in the ocean that makes up trash formations such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, known as the world's largest landfill.

The plastic industry, California Chamber of Commerce and other business interests opposed the bill, saying they already fund recycling and other programs to reduce marine plastic pollution. Plus, they say, the bill asks manufacturers to develop new products or other ways to reduce trash, but it doesn't say how.

Extended producer responsibility laws have already taken root in more than two dozen European countries.

In France, nearly 90 percent of consumer products are part of the "Green Dot" program, requiring manufacturers to pay into a program that recovers and recycles packaging materials. It has successfully influenced manufacturers there to cut down on packaging or use alternative materials.

Stone's office said the assemblyman is unsure if he will reintroduce the bill next year. He is "weighing his options for how to continue to work to address this problem in the future," Smith said.
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Laura Olson contributed to this story from Sacramento.
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Follow Jason Dearen on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen

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