Marine debris can harm both man, animals

Imagine yourself having a day in the beach, enjoying the waves, the water and the scenery. Feeling hungry, you fish out a sandwich from your picnic bag, and a bottle of iced tea. After being eaten, the sandwich is no more. But the plastic bag you used to wrap your sandwich is a different matter altogether, living on as the same plastic for the next 20 years, even if buried under the ground. More amazingly, the plastic beverage bottles from which we drink our mineral water or iced tea will take 450 years to decompose, while a glass bottle will remain as it is for a million years!

Beverage bottles, whether made of glass or plastic, plastic wrappers, and cigarette butts are only a few of hundreds of other similar items that can be found littering our beaches and coastlines, becoming debris that threaten not only our marine eco system but even our health.

From trash to marine debris

Many people are unaware that their daily activities can affect the condition of our shorelines, and even the plants and animals that thrive underneath. Pollution, as we all know, can impact the aesthetic quality as well as the ecological health of our beaches and shorelines.

On a rainy day, you will notice heaps of trash on sidewalks drifting and accumulating in the gutters, where they are then sucked into the storm drain system. Drain system mostly discharge directly into the nearest waterway, which goes straight into the sea.

Trash is also dumped directly into the water bodies by recreational and commercial boaters, or left on the sand by beachgoers. Once such trash becomes marine debris, it tends to remain there for many years, posing harm to marine life and their habitat.

Man and animal at risk

Marine debris harms marine animals like fish, dolphins, whales, seals and birds when these animals become entangled in them, or when they mistake marine debris for food. Reports around the world have described the entanglement of at least 143 marine species in debris. Once entangled, the animals have difficulty eating, breathing or swimming, and thus become easy prey to their natural predators.

A lot of marine debris resembles food that many marine animals eat. A plastic bag from a grocery can be mistaken by other fishes and dolphins for a jelly-fish. Eating such debris also gives them a false sense of being full, without actually having eaten enough real food, causing many to die of starvation.

Humans can also be affected by marine debris that befoul boat propellers, or block pumping systems and cooling intakes. Divers in the sea can be at risk if they become entangled in debris. Marine debris also endangers the livelihood and safety of fishermen and recreational boaters. On the shore, beachgoers can cut themselves on glass and metals left on the beach. The physical harm and risks that marine debris can cause to humans also translate into lost earnings for fishers, insurance companies, and tourism.

A not-so-well-known effect of increasing marine debris is the movement of invading species. Floating debris carry many organisms that can colonize some land-based species. It is basic in ecology that significant problems can arise when organisms in one ecosystem are carried into another part of the world. Invading organisms have no other competitor species for food, thus they grow so fast that other organisms become overwhelmed and unable to compete for food. The bottom line is that the balance of nature becomes altered because of the invading species.

With all these ecological consequences, comes the question: what should be done to address the menace of marine garbage?

Int’l coastal clean-up day

In 1986, Linda Maraniss, a staff of the Ocean Conservancy, started a beach clean-up after being appalled by voluminous trash she found littering the shores of South Padre Island in Texas. She organized the first beach clean- up with 2,800 Texans who were able to collect 124 tons of trash from 122 miles of coastline.

That event became the beginning of a movement for cleaner beaches. It later expanded to the shorelines of other US states/territories. In 1989, the clean-up progressed into an international event, which we now call the International Coastal Clean up (ICC) Month, with the participation of Canada and Mexico. It is observed annually, on every third Saturday of September.

International coastal clean-up is a worldwide effort to fight the problems of marine debris and coastal pollution. ICC highlights the need for marine conservation awareness and education among various sectors of society, especially the coastal communities.

The ICC not only aims for coastal clean-up that ends the day it is finished, but more importantly to establish strategies for conservation, management and sustainable use of coastal resources.

In the Philippines, international coastal clean-up is being initiated by the International Marinelife Alliance as the country coordinator, which links up with the Ocean Conservancy and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as the funding agency.

On the government side, the country’s commitment to International Coastal Clean-up was affirmed when President Arroyo declared the third Saturday of September as the country’s coastal clean-up day by virtue of Proclamation 470 issued in 2003.

Since then, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) spearheads this nationwide activity, enjoining all its regional offices with coastal areas to conduct annual coastal clean ups. However, for regions without coastal areas, DENR employees and volunteers join hands to instead clean rivers, canals and other water bodies.

Other ways to ensure cleanliness

Last year’s coastal clean-up in the country showed that 58 percent of marine debris came from land-based activities. It is, therefore, sensible to put the 3R’s in waste management in practice – reduce, reuse, and recycle. For every article that we recycle or reuse, that is one less piece of trash that may end up in the ocean. Here are some pointers to keep our shorelines clean:

• Exercise your right as a consumer wisely by buying products whose packaging is made from recycled materials or with lesser packaging;

• Switch to using non-toxic products since most of these products eventually drain into the seas and poison marine life; and

• On the beach, refrain from throwing garbage into the waters. This way, not only do we prolong the lives of fishes, we are also preserving our coastlines for future generations to enjoy.