134 



Solid Waste 



About 65 million tons of solid waste are gen- 

 erated annually in the coastal region. Based 

 on a conservative estimate of 8 pounds of 

 waste generated per person per day in the 

 year 2000 — the generation rate which will be 

 reached by 1980 — over 150 million tons will 

 need to be disposed of for that one year. (28) 

 If 10 pounds per person per day are gen- 

 erated, total wastes in the coastal area will be 

 close to 200 million tons, more than triple 

 current levels. The pi-essure to use the ocean 

 for waste disposal will increase as land dis- 

 posal sites become more scarce, costs increase, 

 and metropolitan areas face political prob- 

 lems in obtaining new land disposal sites. 

 Several cities are currently exploring the use 

 of the ocean as a solid waste disposal site, 

 and this interest is expected to increase. In 

 some cases operations may begin within a 

 year. If even a small percentage of the solid 

 waste annually generated in the coastal area 

 were disposed of at sea, the quantities enter- 

 ing the marine environment would be many 

 orders of magnitude greater than all solid 

 waste disposed of at sea to date. 



Sewage Sludge 



Based on an average of .119 pounds of sludge 

 generated per person per day, potential 

 sludge disposal quantities for the coastal 

 region can be roughly estimated. (37) In 

 1970, approximately 1.4 million tons of sludge 

 will be disposed of in the coastal areas, and 

 in the year 2000, approximately 2.1 million 

 tons will be generated, an increase of 50 per- 

 cent in 30 years. If anything, these figures 

 may underestimate future quantities of 

 sludge. For example, between 1960 and 

 1980, 20-year period, the sludge generated 

 by the Baltimore-Washington area is ex- 

 pected to increase from 70,000 tons to 166,000 

 tons, or about a 140 percent increase. New 



York City's sludge barged to sea is expected 

 to increase from 99,000 tons in 1960 to about 

 220,000 tons in 1980, a 120 percent increase 

 in 20 years. (66) 



Industrial Wastes 



The volume of industrial production, which 

 gives rise to waste production, is increasing at 

 a rate of 4.5 percent annually, or three times 

 the population growth rate. Additionally, 

 the FWQA estimates that the manufacturing 

 industry is responsible for three times as 

 much waste as that produced by the Nation's 

 population. And about 40 percent of the Na- 

 tion's industrial activity is concentrated in 

 the estuarine economic region. (36) Given in- 

 creasingly stringent water quality standards 

 and the ever expanding level of industrial 

 waste generation in the coastal zone, the po- 

 tential for increased industrial waste dump- 

 ing at sea is great. 



Radioactive Wastes 



The amount of liquid and solid radioactive 

 wastes will rise with projected increases in 

 nuclear power generation. The amount of 

 high-level liquid radioactive wastes will in- 

 crease from 100,000 gallons in 1970 to 6,000,- 

 000 gallons by the year 2000 and radioactive 

 solid wastes, from approximately 1 million 

 cubic feet in 1970 to 3 million cubic feet by 

 1980. (70) As mentioned earlier, however, 

 ocean dumi^ing has been virtually nonexistent 

 since the early 1960's because of the AEC 

 moratorium and the economic advantage of 

 land disposal. 



Large radioactive structures, an additional 

 source of radiation, are not yet a significant 

 problem. In the past, the few that became ob- 

 solete have been decontaminated, dismantled, 

 and kept under surveillance on land — with 

 the exception of parts of one nuclear sub- 



