Beating Marine Pollution: Greening the Blue

Abstract

This being the environment week the buzz is all about #BeatingPlasticPollution and as such, we continue our Eco-byte series by focusing on marine pollution. Marine pollution is one of the greatest pollution challenges in these modern times, with an estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste finding its way into the world’s oceans each year. The constant increase in the mass of solid waste produced by humans, coupled by the very slow rate at which waste degrades lead to a steady increase in the amount of waste accumulating at the sea, sea floors and along coastlines around the world. Most of the marine pollution is caused by human activities such as littering along beaches, dumping of waste along the coastline, releasing of toxic chemicals and sewage waste into the oceans, oil & chemical leakages by water transport systems (ships, motor boats, ferries, etc.) legal & illegal dumping of waste. Some of the waste is also flushed downstream by river currents as they drain into the sea. This means that whatever activities you could be carrying out upstream will somehow find their way into the ocean.