Specifics of the Problem

So what exactly is marine debris?

Marine debris is anything manmade object that washes up into the oceans. This includes things like plastics, rubber, textiles, metals, and marine equipment. This is mainly due to the trash that gets washed up from the shores.

from the Ocean Conservancy

A portion of oceanic pollution comes from lost containers. According to National Geographic, approximately 10,000 containers are lost due to storms or malpractices every year. Contents from these containers disperse throughout the ocean, disrupt oceanic wildlife, and potentially wash up at shores.

The main issue with trash washing up into the oceans is that much of the trash either does not decompose or takes several decades/centuries to do so. Many plastics do not decompose at all and instead photo-degenerate into smaller and smaller particles known as Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs).

The most toxic Persistant Organic Polutants (POPs) that have the highest impact on the ecosystem include polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, chlorinated pesticides which were banned in 1979 in the U.S. and worldwide 2001, as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

All of these pollutants are known to be low in degradability, high in toxicity, have mutagenic properties, and bioaccumulate through the food chain.

The immediate problem with this is that marine life have been known to ingest these remnants of these microplastics which cause immediate health and digestive problems. Longer-term issues, however, are a lot worse. The ingestion of the chemical remnants in microplastics usually move up through the trophic levels.

The image, from the NOAA depicts the tracing of PCBs through this ecosystem showing that they accumulate all the way up to fishes, sea birds, and marine mammals. The direct effect of this on humans is that consumption of fish accounts for 20% of the globe's source of protein. These toxic chemicals can make their way up the trophic levels and reach humans to be potentially hazardous to consume due to the carcinogenic properties of POPs.