UW researchers warn tsunami debris not the biggest ocean mess

While debris from last year’s Japanese earthquake and
tsunami continues washing up on our shores, local
researchers say we should actually be much more concerned
with ever increasing plastic and other garbage in all of
our oceans.

“The tsunami represents a single pulse, every day across a
very wide array of sources a similar amount of plastic and
marine debris enters the ocean,” says Giora Proskurowski,
University of Washington research scientist and chemical
oceanographer.

He says much of the tsunami debris, such as
remnants of homes and boats will eventually dissipate, but
plastic persists for decades, ultimately breaking down
into tiny pieces that wreak havoc on the environment and
marine life alike. It’s common to find plastic debris on
some of the world’s most pristine beaches.

“The same reason we go to beaches from Hawaii to Bermuda
is the same reason plastics accumulate in the center of
these ocean basins and that’s got to do with atmospheric
highs that set up low winds and low currents that sort of
trap these plastics in the middle of the ocean,” he says.

The ocean garbage also has profound impacts on fish, birds
and large marine mammals that eat or get caught in debris
such as discarded fishing nets. And the researcher says
scientists are closely monitoring the effects of plastic
on the smallest organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

While the problem is well known to marine experts, there
is no simple solution.

“It’s hard for people to imagine the scope of the problem.
We’re talking about millions of square miles in the center
of the ocean basin, so it’s difficult to get there and
it’s
difficult to do any meaningful clean up once you get
there.”

Proskurowski says the best solution is prevention.

“What we can do is address the consumption side and the
recycling side and the prevention side from ever allowing
them to get to the ocean,” he says.

There is one upside to all the attention being paid to
motorcycles or other unique debris from the tsunami
washing up on the West Coast, according to the researcher.

“It increases the awareness that this is one ocean, that
we are connected. I think people lose site of it that
even if we are thousands of miles away, we are one
planet.”