Ocean pollution has been a centuries old issue, but it was not talked about for years

Descriptions of floating debris in the ocean have been recorded as early as 1870, but no one really knew exactly what it was, so it wasn't paid much attention

Interest and research really began to pick up in the 1960's and 1970's

• The first accounts of ocean dumping and marine life interaction with the dumped materials were recorded in the late 1960's

• The first reports of plastics on the seafloor date back to the 1970's

• No early records describe exactly how much or what types of waste ended up in the oceans, but a few sources have made estimates

  • National Academy of Sciences estimated that in 1968, 100 million tons of petroleum products, 2-4 million tons of acid chemicals, more than 1 million tons of industrial waste, and more than 100 thousand tons of organic chemical waste was dumped into the ocean

  • The President Council on Environment Quality on Ocean Dumping reported that in 1970, 38 million tons of dredge materials (34% of which was polluted), 4.5 million tons of industrial waste, 4.5 millions tons of sewage and 0.5 million tons of construction and demolition debris ended up in the ocean in the US alone

Research has been ongoing, and attempts at solutions have been made, but one of the big reasons why ocean pollution is still a persistent issue today is that world governments recognize it as a problem, but haven't done anything significant and impactful enough to put a stop to it

But what has been done?

• 1972 - Congress created the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act

  • The purpose of this Act acknowledged that the US must regulate ocean dumping but did nothing to prevent or eliminate ocean dumping all together

  • Two amendments were made to the MPRSA that created further regulatory measures instead of ones that would end ocean dumping

    • 1988 - Ocean Dumping Ban Act

    • 1992 - Water Resources Development Act

• Different international conferences have been held to discuss the issue

  • 1972 - The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Materials (aka the London Convention)

  • 1985 - The Workshop in the Fate and Impact of Marine Debris

  • 1986 - Sixth International Ocean Disposal Symposium

  • 1989 - Second International Conference on Marine Debris

  • 1994 - Third International Conference on Marine Debris

  • And two more conferences were held in 2000 and 2011

These legal measures and international conferences are steps in the right direction, but just regulating and talking about the issue, while still not doing anything significant enough to fight it, is not going to put a stop to the problem

Research started to drop off by the end of the 1970's but picked back up in the 1990's when a new wave of interest started it up again

• Things like the alarming reports of mid-ocean garbage piles and how many of the world's coral reefs are dying are a few of the outcomes of ocean pollution driving the recent renewed spark in interest and research

Ocean pollution continues to be a big problem in today's world, but we are coming to realize how big of a problem it is and are continuing to take steps towards stopping this injustice

• The public is now more educated on the subject, causing people to become more interested and concerned than ever

The biggest contributors to the ocean pollution problem today are chemical contamination, oil drilling, acidification, and obviously plastic

• Chemical contamination happens when fertilizers and other harsh chemicals, usually used for farming purposes, seep into the ground, end up in water ways and eventually runoff into the ocean

  • The increase in chemical concentration promotes growth in poisonous algae that is toxic to humans and wild life

  • Harsh environments develop, killing off or chasing away all the species that live in those areas, creating "dead zones" (areas where the oxygen is so depleted, that marine life suffocates and dies)

• Oil drilling is a more well known cause of ocean pollution

  • It emits toxic by-product and leads to thousands of oil spills every year

  • Oil spills linger for decades and cause irreversible damage to delicate marine ecosystems

  • Even the most advanced cleanup efforts do not remove all of the oil, and the chemicals used to clean it up are dangerous pollutants themselves

• Acidification is another big contributor to ocean pollution

  • The oceans are acidifying faster in recent years than in the past 300 million years combined

  • Acidification contributes to things like coral bleaching and the changing of the pH levels in the water

    • This leads to the destruction of habitats, hinders marine animals' survival tactics and ruins the shellfish industries on land

• And the biggest, and most well known contributor to ocean pollution is plastics

  • The amount of plastics in the world's oceans has become a global crisis

  • Studies estimate that there are 15-51 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean today

  • And because of the plastic problem, thousands of marine species are killed every year

    • They get entangled in it and can severely hurt themselves, or even die, just trying to get free

    • They mistake it for food, choking on it or starving to death because they think they are eating food when in reality they are just filling up their stomachs with plastic

      • Fish in the North Pacific ingest 12,000-24,000 tons of plastics each year that transmits up the food chain

        • A study found that 25% of fish sold at a California food market had micro-plastics in their guts when sold

      • Dead whales have been found with stomachs full of plastic, like in the picture above

      • It is estimated that 60% of seabirds have eaten plastic, and that half of the world's sea turtles have eaten it too

Ocean pollution is worse today than it has ever been before, but fortunately, people are beginning to realize the damage that it has caused and are starting to advocate for a change

Many countries across the globe have started to take action in helping to combat ocean pollution

• 2017 - 30 countries (all a part of UN Environment's #CleanSeas campaign) began countering the buildup of plastics in the worlds ocean by creating laws, banning plastics and cleaning up polluting waste

• 2018 - a report from United Nations stated that more than 60 countries have enacted regulations to limit or ban the use of disposable plastics

• 2019 - 186 countries, nearly all the countries in the world, agreed upon an amendment to the Basel Convention treaty (one designed by United Nations to fight hazardous waste) that added thousands of types of plastics to the pollution list as a way to help combat ocean pollution

All these acts and campaigns are great, and we can see that improvements are being made, but they are only targeting one source of the problem - plastic

• There are other sources of ocean pollution too like oil spills, chemical runoff and toxic waste, that are being overlooked

• These other causes can't be ignored, or else the problem will never go away

The decisions we make in the upcoming decades, will impact and shape the future of the oceans more profoundly then ever before

At our current rate, it is expected that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050

• The fossil fuel industry is expected to increase plastic production by 40% in the next decade

By the end of the century, the ocean is expected to be 150% more acidic than it is right now

The fishing industry will be severely impacted due to over fishing as well as rising ocean temperatures and increasing acidity driving fish away or killing them off

The temperature of the ocean will continue to rise, having many serious implications

• Ocean levels will continue to rise and storm intensity will increase, wiping out coastal populations and ecosystems

• If we continue as we are, shallow water coral reefs and all the lives that depend on them for survival, will have vanished by 2050

• New "dead zones" will arise and existing ones will only get bigger, further limiting inhabitable parts of the ocean for species to survive