Plastic debris dumped in oceans
The study was lead by researchers from the Univ. of Georgia and looked at the world’s 192 coastal communities using data compiled in 2010. While some data suggested that the amount may only be 5 million tonnes, other put it as high as 13 million.
They listed countries from worst offenders to the least offenders and found China dumps the most plastic debris into the ocean, with about 2.4 million tons coming from that country each year. In order the rest of the top ten worst offenders were Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
Coastal countries from the European Union ranked 18th and the U.S. 20th.
Prof. Jenna Jambeck of the Univ. of Georgia, lead author of the study, said some of these plastics sink and some, like polypropylene and polyethylene, stay floating. Some break down into smaller fragments, others won’t.
Project Aware: Dive for Debris
There are efforts to clean up the oceans from governments and citizens. An international organization, Project Aware, has an ongoing effort called the ‘Dive for Debris.’ It encourages divers and others to hold events with groups to clean up oceans in their area, and encourages divers in general to pick up junk they encounter in the ocean.
Canadian diver Amber Spitkovski has organized a Dive for Debris every year since 2011 in her community of Bowen Island on the coast of B.C. She told Digital Journal the first year her and a team of volunteers collected about a thousand pounds of debris, plastic and otherwise, from ocean water around their island. Each year since that total has grown.
“My reaction when I find all this garbage is ‘oh my God – this is horrible,’ Spitkovski said. “The big thing about what we’re doing is awareness, showing people how it’s not a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”
They have found plastic binds, portable DVD players, barbecue parts, cables, computer keyboards, plastic containers, marine batteries, outboard motors, generators, battery chargers, plastic electronics, a crab trap, old blenders and other household appliances including a fridge.
The newly released study on plastic debris marks the first time a group has tried to put a number on the amount of plastic debris going into the ocean yearly. In figures that were available prior to this study, it’s believed that the oceans of the world now contain 245 million tons of plastic debris.
