Utrecht UniversityPlastic litter in the Sea: Vessels contribute, but what are the directives and how likely is someone to follow them? by Sophy E. Theodorou #4129423 Submitted to Professor Gilissen H.K. for the course Water Policy, Law and Governance June 28, 2014 Source: Asiantown.net It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti Blue waters of the sea, they make you feel relaxed, happy and peaceful. However the beautiful waters, have been used as a huge garbage bin since the The Golden Age of Pericles (5 th century BC). According to Papatheodorou (2011), the Athenians were financing the navy as well as the Acropolis from the exploitation of silver mines in the region of Lavrio and used to throw in the sea the remaining of the mining. The sediments of the ancient harbor of Marseiles, which flourished during the roman period (1 st Century BC – 4 th Century AC), found to be contaminated by lead which originates in metallurgical activities in the area. Finally, do not forget Jules Verne who referred to marine litter, which had been found miles away from the place of their origin, in his book “20,000 Leagues under the Sea” in 1870. But now we are 7.000.000.000 people in the world. Within every year, large amounts of litter enter the sea. The plastic accounts for 90% of all the trash floating in the world's oceans. Plastic has long –lasting biodegradation time (at least 450 years and it can take up to 1000 years) with a consequence their amount in the sea to steadily increase and this results in the death of countless sea animals. National Academy of Sciences in the USA estimated in 1997 that every year 6.4 million tons of plastic enter the sea. However, because the garbage in the sea is constantly moving, is almost impossible to count it with accuracy. For this reason, the scientists are estimating in terms of surface area. According to the evaluation of Silverman (n.d), there are 46,000 pieces per square mile of floating plastic. Although the problem has increased dramatically since 1940s, still there is no effective strategy either to move either to decrease the litter in the sea. To my way of thinking, the fact that there is so much plastic litter in the sea and still no strategy to tackle the problem effectively, makes the sustainability such a weak sector. If a plastic bottle takes at least 450 years to biodegrade, and every year the plastics are increasing, then we can easily assume that for at least the next 450 years we will not have clean sea therefore, we will not have sound sustainability in the marine environment unless things change dramatically. Before all else, we should wonder from where all that litter enters the sea worldwide. And the answer is: through many different paths. The 80% of marine litter origins from land based sources such as landfills, rivers and estuaries, rainwater, flood, industrial discharges, sewage networks, raw urban waste water and tourism. While the rest comes from maritime activities like shipping, navigation, maritime transport, yachts, fishing, aqua/fish farming, as well as from the offshore mining and extraction of natural resources which includes the oil rigs with the pumping of petroleum and lastly by illegal sea discharges and gears dispositions. However, several researches in the North Sea have shown that the majority of the litter comes from the maritime sector rather than the land. Perhaps the most littered marine area is the North Pacific gyre (Image 1) where the most of the garbage is ending up. It is known as Pacific trash vortex, "a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of little wind and extreme high pressure systems", as has been characterized by Charles Moore, a sailor, who first discovered the vortex back in 1997. Image 1:The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Source: Marinedebris.noaa.gov The litter cause countless of negative ecological, healthy and socioeconomic impacts. To begin with, the litter in the sea influence the biological and ecological behavior of the animals (sea creatures as well as birds). Animals face difficulty in digestion, they have a lot of reproductive problems, poor physical fitness and many more (Image 2). Turtles confuse plastic bags with jellyfish (Image 3) and birds confuse bottle caps with food (Image 4). They eat it however, they cannot digest non-biologic components which is resulting in experiencing the feeling of fullness in the stomach and subsequently drives to death by starvation. Furthermore, the pieces of fishing net and discarded lengths of rope are causing death to creatures who are trapped by drowning, starvation or are exposed to undefended attacks by predators (Image 5& Image 6). Source: EIA-International Source: Theanimalspost.com Image 2: Whale found dead with 20 kg of plastic in stomach Image 3: Turtle confuses plastic bag with jelly fish Image 4: Looking inside the bird Source: Genetology.net Source: Doug Perrine naturepl.com Source: Firmm.org Life is a cycle. Whatever someone does, it will return back to him. Applying this in the world of plastic, we produce it and in the end we eat it. Further analysis in 2012 and 2013 (Seary, et al., 2013) showed that, precisely the 100% of the fishes in Greek marine environment, were found to contain miniature fibers of plastic in their stomachs which confirms that the microplastic particles are entering the food chain as well. So we're now literally eating the plastic we produce. But which are the international campaigns and directives to protect the sea creatures as well as our health from this damage? There are several campaigns like the one of The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which was launched with the aim to increase the awareness of the current situation. It attempts to push for regulations and practices at regional level such as recycling, waste separation and bottle deposit-refund systems. Studies have estimated that a huge amount of litter Image 6: Turtle had been trapped in the fishing net Image 5: Unhappy Seal trapped in discharged rope is disposed in the environment with the consequence of ending up in the sea. So, the UNEP is highlighting the seriousness of adequate waste management systems. Another campaign is the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC). ICC members are usually children and youth who are trying to clean up the beaches year by year. ICC provides a very good insight of the worldwide litter situation as it keeps a transcript for every piece of collected litter, with the result of a huge data collection. The regular monitoring of marine litter is of great importance. The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention) established in 1992, beside the prevention and elimination of pollution from land-based sources, offshore sources as well as by dumping or incineration considers monitoring to be of major attention for the quality of the sea water and marine environment. The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973 as modified by the Protocol of 1978, introduced regulations which intend to prevent and decrease the contamination from the vessels. Upon several restrictions regarding the prevention of pollution, it includes as well the one by garbage from ships. The dumping of the food wastes into the sea is restricted when the vessel has a distance less than 12 nautical miles from the land. The disposal of all materials which contain plastic is strictly prohibited. According to a retired captain who preferred to remain anonymous in order to speak more candidly, “every ship has a posted text on the wall which explains what you can throw in the sea and in what distance from the land” (Interview with a Captain , 2014). The Directive 2000/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2000 on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo debris, obligates the captains to report the date and the last port in which ship-generated waste was delivered and the quantity of waste remaining on board. Furthermore, forces the ships to dump their wastes before they leave the port paying a fee for the system. The cost recovery system has been proven to be quite risky as the captains, with orders from the ship company, are more likely to throw the waste in the sea rather than to pay the fee. However, observing that the amount of litter in the North Sea has not been decreased throughout the years, the directive had been modified and improved in 2012. In my question to the captain, if he had ever dispose waste in the sea, he answered remarkably: “I have thrown garbage in the sea just once in my life. It was a great need. The people who were responsible to collect the waste, never shown up, as result a the waste remained on the ship and it caused unaffordable smells increasing the risk of contamination. I had to throw them in the sea in order to protect the health of my crew.” (Interview with a Captain , 2014). So, whose was the mistake? For sure not of the directive. I think that when the collection waste system does not work appropriately and on time, it is exposing to risk of contamination the whole crew of the ship and afterwards the sea. It seemed that any agreement or directive has no effect on the decrease of the amount of waste disposed in the marine environment. This could also rely on the high corruption within the system of some countries. According to the Captain: “The Greek shipping companies are more likely to follow the directives and regulations, because of fear to not pay the price. However, the Captains are more likely to follow the rules when they sale near the developed countries, as US, Australia and Europe and less likely near the low income countries like India Nigeria and China. This is happening because, people in those countries, living in under great corruption, do not seem to follow faithfully the law” (Interview with a Captain , 2014). In my opinion, tackling the corruption will decrease the easiness of disposing garbage in the sea water around countries with a high corruption index. In the end the policy makers should take into account also the high corruption in some countries. Today, the stakeholders expect that the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) which is a tool developed by the European Union, aiming to protect the aquatic environment, with focus on environmental conditions by 2020, will help to advance to a more desirable status. Even though, I find it quite difficult, after so many years of enforcements, just one directive to improve the situation. The main issue is that the world is short of real actions rather than potential solutions. In 2012 Boyan Slat proposed the so called Ocean Clean up Array, a device that as he claimed, could remove 7,250,000 tons of plastic waste from the oceans (Image 7). After one year of feasibility studies at Delft University, on June 3rd 2014, Boyan Slat unveiled the results, indicating that his ocean cleanup concept is feasible (The Ocean Clean Up, 2014). The obvious question is whether it will be implemented and under what regulations. Image 7: Ocean Clean up Array Source: Theoceancleanup.com Additional meaningful results could be achieved by making better use of the international trade unions in order to prevent wrongdoing by enforcing effective regulations and fighting corruption which is one of the roots of the inefficiency of the current system. The waste collections system could be improved if independent auditors would estimate the projected amount of waste that a ship will generate during the entire journey based on the cumulative onboard supplies before the departure from the home port. This projection should be monetized and a specific amount of money frozen from the companies accounts. The capital would be released only after the shipping company provides proof that it disposed the waste in respect with all the standards, otherwise the frozen amount should be retained as a penalty fee. More radical however, fair actions would be to tax the consumption of plastic material in order to provide funding for collecting the plastic waste and afterwards require the producers to recycle from the yearly collections an amount which would correspond to their share from the global production of plastic in that period. The current situation is best described by Charles Moore “Only we humans make waste that nature can't digest...All the king's horses and all the king's men will never gather up all the plastic and put the ocean back together again” (Moore, 2009). Unless we do not want to deprive the future generations by what life and nature is meant to be we should work harder in order to design practical ways to eliminate the problem. References Anonymous. (2014, June 27). Interview with a Captain . (S. E. Theodorou, Interviewer) Moore, C. (Writer), & TED (Director). (2009). Seas of plastic [Motion Picture]. Retrieved June 28, 2014, from http://www.ted.com/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic Papatheodorou, G. (2011). Floating and benthic marine litter in the Mediterranean sea: Typology, Abundance, Sources, Survey methods and Impacts on marine biota. In N. Stambler (Ed.), Life in the Mediterranean Sea: A Look at Habitat Changes (pp. 597-637). Seary, R., Rivero, C., Miliou, A., Standerwick, R., Demetriou, M., Chuda, D., & Siwka, I. (2013). Multi phase microplastic assesment of the greek marine environment. In A. I. Convertion, & D. o. Swansea University (Ed.), International Committee for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean (CIESM). Retrieved from http://issuu.com/archipelago.gr/docs/ciesm_presentation_2013 Silverman, J. (n.d). Why is the world's biggest landfill in the Pacific Ocean? Retrieved June 27, 2014, from How stuff works: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage- patch.htm Slat, B. (2014, June 3). The Ocean Clean Up. Retrieved from The Ocean Clean Up: http://www.theoceancleanup.com/