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Ocean
Pollution, Ocean Garbage and Marine Debris
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Always pick
up your trash when you leave the beach. Pollution
can be reduced a number of ways. Many communities
have beach-clean-up days. Recycling reduces the amount
of trash that is available to go into the ocean.
Care should be taken to make sure that oil from cars,
suds from washing, and other pollutants do not go
down your storm drain. Any landscaping should be
protected until it is stable so that silt does not
get washed into rivers and streams. Party balloons
should be popped and never released into the air.
Marine pollution can start as far away as middle-America.
Any toxic materials that are put into rivers and
bodies of water can flow eventually to the oceans.
Run-off from drains and areas adjacent to the ocean
is also a severe problem, bringing all kinds of materials
into the sea. Toxic pollutants in the ocean have
considerable impacts on plants and animals. Heavy
metal poisoning from elements such as lead and mercury
caused by industry builds up in the tissues of top
predators such as whales and sharks, causing birth
defects and nervous system damage. Dioxins from pulp
and paper mills, and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's)
from oil pollution and burning wood and coal cause
cause genetic problems in marine animals. Polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCB’s) from electrical equipment can cause
birth problems in most marine organisms. Sewage can
cause massive nutrient loading in the oceans, which
leads to algal blooms, effectively decreasing the
amount of dissolved oxygen in the water and many
organisms die from lack of oxygen. Sewage also introduces
parasites and bacteria, which can cause beach and
shellfish harvesting closures. Garbage
has always been discarded into the ocean, but since
the 1940s, plastic use has increased dramatically,
resulting in a huge quantity of nearly indestructible,
lightweight material floating in the oceans and eventually
deposited on beaches worldwide. Marine garbage includes
fishing nets, plastics, party balloons, beach toys,
general household garbage. Animals eat this garbage
and it strangles them or blocks their digestive system
causing starvation. Entanglement can also constrict
growth and circulation, causing eventual slow death,
or trap marine animals within large debris, leading
to drowning, starvation or attack by predators. Even
if just attached, it slows the animals’ ability to
move through the water, and animals starve due to
their inability to catch prey.
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Picture of oil pipes
and drilling rig on Endicott Island, Prudhoe Bay,
Alaska, USA.
Picture #: 068809 |
Image of brown bear,
Ursus arctos, or grizzly bear, Ursus
arctos horribiis, spring cub, digging in garbage
looking for food, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska
Picture #: 053431 |
Stock photo of
oil from pollution on king comorant, Phalacrocorax
atriceps albiventer, Falklands, Atlantic
Picture #: 069131 |
Photo of tugs manoevering
an oil tanker near Valdez in Prince William Sound,
Alaska
Picture #: 068181 |
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Picture of beach pollution.
After winter storms, raw sewage and every possible
type of floating trash from modern urban life are
flushed down the Tijuana River from Mexico and ultimately
end up in the ocean south of Imperial Beach San Diego
California.
Picture #: 067468 |
Image of a pumping unit
in the oil fields near Niznevartovsk. Khanty Mansiysk,
Western Siberia, Russia.
Picture #: 068830 |
Stock photo of a sperm
whale, Physeter macrocephalus, entangled in fishing
net, Mediterranean Sea, Italy
Picture #: 070503 |
Photo of a yellow moray
eel, Gymnothorax prasinus, tangled and dead
in a fishing line, found in Poor Knight Island Marine
Reserve - no fishing is allowed there - , New Zealand,
Pacific
Picture #: 076786 |
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Picture of
Endicott Oil Production Island, Prudhoe Bay on the
North Slope. Alaska, USA.
Picture #: 068813 |
Image of a sign warning
of water pollution from the outlet of a creek in
Santa Barbara California.
Picture #: 067464 |
Stock photo of garbage,
debris, discarded plastic bottles and other manmade
items pollute the Nu'u Pai Ponds Wildlife Management
Wetlands. Located on the windward side of Oahu, Hawaii
near the Marine Corps Base Kaneohe.
Picture #: 018315 |
Photo of oil drums
discarded by U.S. military on the Melville Peninsula,
Nunavut, Canada
Picture #: 068819 |
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Picture of an oil spill
from leaking pipes pollutes a lake near Niznevartovsk,
Khanty Mansiysk, West Siberia, Russia
Picture #: 068836 |
Image of garbage and
marine debris, at South Point, Hawaii, Pacific Ocean
Picture #: 020011 |
Stock photo of ocean
sunfish, Mola mola, caught in tannara net in Mediterranean
Picture #: 070595 |
Photo of a beach sign
warning of sewage contaminated water. Raw sewage
and other pollution from the Tijuana River often
close beaches along Imperial Beach California after
winter storms.
Picture #: 067474 |
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Picture of Haitices
National Park, Buffer Zone, Dominican Republic, garbage
dump causing pollution
Picture #: 073250 |
Image of a volunteer
for the annual pier cleanup collecting garbage tossed
into the ocean, Kailua Kona, Hawaii, Pacific
Picture #: 074978 |
Stock photo of leaking
oil pipes causing pollution near Niznevartovsk,
Khanty Mansiysk, West Siberia, Russia
Picture #: 068837 |
Photo of basking shark
feeding, Cetorhinus maximus, England, North
Atlantic, tangled in marine debris, plastic band
hooked over snout
Picture #: 077347 |
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