view that: the Service deserved much credit for its efforts 

 to convene the 1984 Workshop; substantial new data on the marine 

 debris problem had been developed since 1984; considerable 

 progress had been made internationally by organizations includ- 

 ing the International Maritime Organization, the Food and Agri- 

 cultural Organization, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic 

 Commission, and others to recognize and address the issue of 

 marine debris; and a comprehensive international review of 

 the entire matter would be timely and provide substantive 

 guidance to the many research and management actions underway 

 or contemplated. 



Therefore, the Commission, in consultation with its 

 Committee of Scientific Advisors, wrote to the Service on 

 29 December 1987 to provide further recommendations regarding 

 the Workshop. In its letter, the Commission noted that, if 

 possible, it might be preferable to hold the Workshop in late 

 1988 rather than in 1989. By doing so, the Workshop would 

 coincide with critical planning periods associated with domestic 

 efforts to assess recommendations contained in the Marine 

 Debris Task Force Report to the Domestic Policy Council (see 

 above) and international actions to develop programs to imple- 

 ment requirements of Annex V of the International Convention 

 for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (see below) . In 

 addition, because of the outstanding work done on the 1984 

 Workshop by the Service's Honolulu Laboratory, the Hawaii Sea 

 Grant Program Office, and the Steering Group organized by the 

 Director of the Honolulu Laboratory, the Commission recommended 

 that responsibility for planning and organizing the forthcoming 

 Workshop again be vested with either or both the Laboratory 

 and the Sea Grant Program Office, and that a Steering Group 

 for the Workshop again be established. With respect to the 

 Steering Group, the Commission also recommended that represen- 

 tatives from Australia, Canada, England, France, Japan, New 

 Zealand, and the Soviet Union, as well as the United States, 

 be invited to participate so as to ensure a broad interna- 

 tional focus. 



MARPOL Annex V 



As noted above, Annex V of the 1978 Protocol Relating to 

 the Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships 

 would provide an international framework for controlling the 

 disposal of ship-generated garbage at sea. A summary of 

 discharge limitations under the Annex is provided in the 

 table on the following page. The discharge limitations and 

 other provisions of Annex V, which also include measures for 

 providing port reception facilities to off-load and properly 

 dispose of ship-generated garbage, offer an important oppor- 

 tunity for reducing quantities of potentially harmful marine 

 debris entering the marine environment. Therefore, the Com- 

 mission and other Federal agencies have worked hard in the 



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