Irifman/Soulhern California Sea Gram 



Education is the key to teaching these Catalina, Calif., boaters and others about the dangers of marine debris. 



Like other liner sources, resource 

 managers don't know exactly what per- 

 centage urban wastes contribute to the 

 overall problem. In many cases, city 

 litter is indistinguishable from vessel 

 debris or recreational byproducts. Only 

 a few items — tampon applicators, 

 condoms, syringes and resin pellets — 

 can be directly linked to the sewage 

 overflows and industrial wastes indica- 

 tive of urban wastes. 



Despite the lack of data, urban 

 refuse is nonetheless considered a major 

 marine debris contributor, especially in 

 coastal waters adjacent to major cities. 

 For example, the Environmental Protec- 

 tion Agency's Floatables Action Plan 

 for New York/New Jersey Harbor re- 

 moved more than 1 .000 tons of floating 

 debris from harbor waters in 1993. 

 Meanw hile. New Jersey's Operation 

 Clean Shores swept 5.700 tons of trash 

 from 67 miles of nearby New Jersey 

 beaches in the same year. 



And while urban debris poses some 

 of the same problems — wildlife en- 

 tanglement and ingestion, visual eye- 

 sore, navigation hazards, vessel damage 



— as trash from other sources, it also 

 elevates the potential for human health 

 threats. Because city wastes sometimes 

 contain used syringes and other medical 

 wastes, potential does exist for disease 

 transmission. 



Everyone — 

 the citizen, the factory owner, 

 the legislator, the regulator, 

 the enforcement officer 

 and the educator — 

 should examine the 

 marine debris continuum 

 to see where he or she 

 can make a difference. 



Also, medical wastes create eco- 

 nomic problems when it washes ashore. 

 Although beachgoers will tolerate 

 shores littered with cans, foam cups and 

 fishing line, they stay away from 

 beaches contaminated with used sy- 

 ringes and vials of blood, even if these 

 medical wastes are present only in small 

 quantities. In the summers of 1987 and 

 1988. New York and New Jersey 



beaches were littered with small amounts 

 of medical debris. Because of the public- 

 ity generated by these washups. people 

 stayed away from these beaches by the 

 droves, costing the New York/New Jer- 

 sey economy almost $2 billion in lost 

 revenues. 



Since then, state, federal and local 

 governments in the United States have 

 initiated programs in cities such as New 

 York and Miami to reduce urban debris. 

 They've beefed up storm water manage- 

 ment efforts, launched adult and youth 

 educational campaigns, employed new 

 and old technologies to sweep streets and 

 skim waters, promoted recycling and 

 reuse, instigated industrial cleanup pro- 

 grams and begun volunteer beach debris 

 pickup efforts. 



But urban marine debris persists. 

 And if the problem is bad in an industri- 

 alized country such as the United States 

 where the money and technology exists 

 to curb its flow, then the magnitude of the 

 problem in the urban cities of developing 

 countries is unfathomable. 



Where does the debris come from? 

 Primarily, three sources. 



1 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1994 



