The way we
choose to live can impact our surrounding environment positively or negatively. The marine environment is not exempt from this. In fact, currently our society, fundamentally based on values of materialism and consumerism, is having a detrimental impact on not only the marine environment but the world as a whole.
Henry David Thoreau pondered:
“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”
Crumpled
Earth. By Corey Matsumoto, GFDL: (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), via
Wikimedia Commons.
Our oceans constitute 71% of the Earth’s surface and contain
97% of Earth’s water[1].
They play a vital role in the functioning of the atmosphere to allow life to flourish,
in the form of carbon cycling, climate regulation and providing large numbers
of the population with an essential source of food.
With that in mind,
how are WE causing harmful pollution to enter the marine environment?
Much of the
pollution entering our oceans is a result of
human activity on land. A significant source is called nonpoint source
pollution, which is an accumulation from a variety of small and large sources
that includes: cars, septic tanks, farmland for crop or livestock and forestry.
This form of pollution occurs largely as a result of run-off. For example,
after heavy rain the water will flow across a car park simultaneously picking up
oil left behind by cars
[4]. This example can
also be applied to farmland where fertilisers are used to aid crop cultivation.
Heavy rain will wash these chemicals from the fields into valleys, leading into
rivers that then carry the pollutants into the marine environment. Imagine
swimming in that!
Another source is known as point source pollution, which is pollution that occurs from a single source. Examples of this include
oil spills from drilling/tankers and discharge from factories or water treatment systems (e.g. sewage treatment plants) as a result of damage or faulty operations.
[5]
An oil spill.
By US Gov NOAA (US Gov NOAA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Today, one of the most obvious sources of marine pollution
is in the form of marine debris. Marine debris includes materials such as
plastics, glass, metal, rubber, paper, cloth and wood that originate from a
range of land-based and ocean-based sources. For example, waste accumulated by
day-to-day use in society, derelict fishing gear and abandoned vessels
[3]. The most common form of marine debris is plastic,
this is due to an explosion in its production and application in
our
lives; from the 1950s to 2014 there was a 200-fold increase in the annual production
of plastic
[2]. This
begs the question: where is all that plastic going?
Marine
debris. By Nevit, GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) via Wikimedia
Commons.
We produce and consume on a vast scale, ending in the
production of huge volumes waste. Waste that, once released into the
environment translates into detrimental pollution. Unless we clean up our act,
will we be known as the plague of polluters?
- Ben
References:
[2] Li, W. C., Tse, L. and Fok, L., 2016. Plastic waste in the
marine environment: A review of sources, occurrences and effects. Science of
the Total Environment 566-567, 333-349
