When a friend of his became the company's operations manager, he decided instead to reward skippers based on the amount of litter they returned to port. It's just little things that can really change behaviour.
He added that since the study was published, two shipping companies have contacted him saying they want to work to solve this problem. She has a PhD in chemistry. Pseudonyms will no longer be permitted. By submitting a comment, you accept that CBC has the right to reproduce and publish that comment in whole or in part, in any manner CBC chooses. Please note that CBC does not endorse the opinions expressed in comments.
Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time. Join the conversation Create account. Already have an account? Science Ships are illegally dumping plastic trash at sea, study suggests Trash thrown illegally from cargo ships is the likely source of thousands of plastic bottles washing up on a remote island in the South Atlantic, says a new study.
That suggests more focus on littering at sea may be needed to tackle the ocean plastics problem. Social Sharing. Ships have been strictly banned from throwing trash overboard for more than 30 years. Heavy load: Study breaks down toll of laundry microfibres on ocean ecosystems Video. Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer.
Please click here to see any active alerts. On this page:. In the past, communities around the world used the ocean for waste disposal, including the disposal of chemical and industrial wastes, radioactive wastes, trash, munitions, sewage sludge, and contaminated dredged material. Little attention was given to the negative impacts of waste disposal on the marine environment.
Even less attention was focused on opportunities to recycle or reuse such materials. Wastes were frequently dumped in coastal and ocean waters based on the assumption that marine waters had an unlimited capacity to mix and disperse wastes.
Although no complete records exist of the volumes and types of materials disposed in ocean waters in the United States prior to , several reports indicate a vast magnitude of historic ocean dumping:. Following decades of uncontrolled dumping, some areas of the ocean became demonstrably contaminated with high concentrations of harmful pollutants including heavy metals, inorganic nutrients, and chlorinated petrochemicals.
The uncontrolled ocean dumping caused severe depletion of oxygen levels in some ocean waters. In the New York Bight ocean waters off the mouth of the Hudson River , where New York City dumped sewage sludge and other materials, oxygen concentrations in waters near the seafloor declined significantly between and In October , Congress enacted the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act MPRSA , sometimes referred to as the Ocean Dumping Act, declaring that it is the policy of the United States to regulate the dumping of all materials which would adversely affect human health, welfare or amenities, or the marine environment, ecological systems or economic potentialities.
The London Convention is one of the first international agreements for the protection of the marine environment from human activities. The President on November 18 signed into law the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of , which prohibits all municipal sewage sludge and industrial waste dumping into the ocean after December 31, Makes it unlawful for any person to dump, or transport for the purpose of dumping, sewage sludge or industrial waste into ocean waters after December 31, ;.
Prohibits, after the th day after enactment, any person from dumping, or transporting for the purpose of dumping, sewage sludge or industrial waste into ocean waters unless the person: 1 enters into a compliance or enforcement agreement which includes a plan negotiated by the dumper, the State, and EPA for terminating dumping as well as a schedule which EPA believes will result in the termination of the dumping , and 2 obtains a permit issued by EPA under authority of sec.
Provides for the payment of special fees for dumping and any penalties incurred by a dumper to be deposited into certain funds for use in finding alternatives to ocean dumping. Cited as the "United States Public Vessel Medical Waste Anti-Dumping Act of ", this section prohibits, 6 months after enactment, disposal of potentially infectious medical waste into ocean waters by a "public vessel".
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