Clean Beaches Week: How Ocean Trash Affects Marine Ecosystems
July is the perfect time for quintessential summer activities: barbecues, bike rides, and bonfires on the beach. But it’s also an excellent time to remind ourselves of the impacts of ocean trash and the ways we can support healthy coastal and aquatic ecosystems. July 1-7 is Clean Beaches Week, and here’s why those beach cleanups are so beneficial.
Why Are Beach Cleanups Important?
Beach Restoration
Beach trash has negative impacts for humans, animals, and the environment as a whole. It’s an eyesore for local communities and a deterrent for tourists, which can impact tourism revenue in places that rely on it. Additionally, toxins from discarded cigarettes leach into the environment and can contaminate wildlife.
Plastics are especially dangerous and prevalent, with about 80% of trash found on beaches coming from disposable single-use plastics. This trash has been shown to affect an astonishing number of beach wildlife. Ocean Conservancy reports that “plastic has been found in more than 60% of all seabirds and in 100% of sea turtles species.”
Education
Beach cleanups are also a great opportunity to educate kids and communities about marine life and conservation. It’s an engaging, hands-on activity that brings lessons to life, and demonstrates the relevance of marine conservation in local environments.
Reducing Ocean Plastic
Finally, beach cleaning is an effective way to limit the amount of plastic that reaches the ocean. Although picking up trash by yourself or with a group may seem like a small effort, these projects add up to big differences. For example, the organization Ocean Blue Project removed 82,582 pounds of beach trash in 2019 alone.
How Ocean Trash Harms Marine Ecosystems
Limiting additional trash—particularly plastic—in the ocean is a vital part of marine conservation. There are already appalling amounts of trash in the ocean, which concentrate in gyres to form five “garbage patches” in the world’s oceans. The largest of these is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which comprises an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash. It covers an area twice the size of Texas.
Marine debris is harmful for oceanic environments in many ways, particularly for wildlife. Many sea creatures frequently mistake plastic for food, eventually starving due to their stomachs becoming filled with plastic. Marine wildlife also get caught in plastics and discarded fishing nets, known as ghost gear. Floating plastic also aids the transportation of invasive species.
Furthermore, plastic does not decay, but breaks down into smaller pieces, or microplastics. Microplastics bioaccumulate in sea life and pervade essentially every environment, even showing up in tap water, beer, and salt.
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