181 
of tons of sewage sludge continue to be dumped in various places of 
the world each year, very often with levels of cadmium and mer- 
cury that exceed the safe amounts many times. Most of this waste 
is dumped directly on the Continental Shelf, which is the most vul- 
nerable place in the ocean. 
One of the arguments is that ocean waters have a capacity to 
cleanse themselves, with the help of sunlight, of chemical reac- 
tions, and of bacteria. This is true. But the ocean waters have no 
ability whatsoever to neutralize some extremely stable toxins. 
These stable toxins accumulate timelessly, ever adding to the poi- 
sons of the sea. A very small portion of those stable toxins may be 
dispersed in the upper layer of the sediment, but the wet spot of 
the upper layer of the sediment at the bottom of the sea is very 
thin, about 1 or 2 feet, and the heavy metals, radioactive materials 
that are dumped in the sea may be dispersed into the layer but do 
not go any further. We have made some measurements, and I can 
assure you of that. 
All these stable toxins dispersed in the sea are absorbed, as you 
all know, by plankton, and after that by fish, and they end up very 
often on the plate of the supreme predator, man, in a boomerang 
effect. 
We have a big problem with city dumping. Major cities through- 
out the world, coastal cities, have a particularly difficult problem. 
They have grown up relying on the ability of coastal waters to 
accept their discard, and we have to temporarily consider the polit- 
ical and economic difficulties faced by the leaders of these cities as 
they seek reasonable solutions to what is in reality a problem re- 
sulting from a relatively recent understanding of the potential 
harm such practices might bring about indefinitely into the future. 
As an internationally focused organization, the Cousteau Society 
defers to the more specific expertise of scientific and public policy 
interests in these particular cases. However, as decisions are made 
whether to institutionalize such dumping to accommodate future 
growth, the use of the oceans—and indeed, dispersal of wastes into 
any facet of the environment—must be subjected to the same care- 
ful consideration I am outlining here. Continuation of present 
dumping practices must be considered the transient solution, pend- 
ing the technological and economic availability of alternatives. 
The approach to be taken and the questions to be addressed 
today are far from being completely understood. They require very 
careful, responsible, as well as pragmatic consideration. And, of 
course, this consideration will have to be based on data, and we do 
not have enough data. 
Dumping practices should be governed by many concerns. Let me 
quickly itemize most of them. We have to understand how a sub- 
stance affects living marine organisms and their reproductive ca- 
pacity. We have to understand how a substance will affect the 
humans that ingest the contaminated sea creatures. We have to 
understand how waste will react to other chemical compounds in 
the ocean, which means what the synergistic effect will be. We 
have to consider whether the waste will interfere with the ocean’s 
ability to produce materials, such as phytoplankton, which is the 
foundation of the food chain and the impact waste will have on rec- 
reational areas or other traditional uses. Of utmost and often un- 
