NOAA Reports Million Pieces of Trash Collected Along Monterey Bay Shoreline; Massive Garbage Build Up Threatens Ecosystem

Last October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released a report that revealed that more than one million items were collected along the shoreline of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. These pieces of trash were gathered by more than 37,000 volunteers from 2017 to 2021.

Massive Trash Problem

The report, taken from NOAA's Marine Debris Program, is a combination of five citizen datasets that aim to analyze the amount of trash collected in cleanups throughout the marine sanctuary over four years. Organizations that run local cleanups, such as Downtown Streets Team, the Surfrider Foundation, and Save Our Shores, supplied the data.

Most of the plastic debris collected along the Monterey Bay shoreline was in small pieces and could not be attributed to any particular waste category. Shorelines in urban areas like Santa Cruz have the highest amount of plastic debris but also the highest number of cleanups. Meanwhile, some areas of the coastline, like Big Sur, were entirely inaccessible for cleanup volunteers.

According to Save our Shores executive director Erica Donnelly-Greenan, cleanups are still needed. She noted that although beach cleanups cannot address the source of the problem, they can help make people aware of the problem. They can also provide valuable data for large-scale reports.

The report released by NOAA is the first of its kind in the region and was only possible because of the collaboration between citizens and scientists. In recent years, citizen data science has gotten much more prosperous and offered more data than in the past.

Human efforts can help reduce marine debris upstream and on the beach. It is important to impose proper trash disposal at the beach, and so are legislative solutions to reduce the amount of plastic that makes its way into the coastline.

Threats from Marine Debris

Marine debris refers to any persistent solid material manufactured, processed, disposed of, or abandoned in the marine environment. Beachgoers leave it, washes up on beaches from the ocean, or migrate downstream when it rains. Through tides and ocean upwelling, some of this debris makes its way to coastlines from distant locations.

All marine debris can harm ocean life by causing intestinal blockages, malnutrition, and even poisoning when ingested. About 73% of marine debris is composed of plastics of various kinds, like food wrappers, bottles, bags, containers, and other items. As plastic breaks apart, they do not break down but get smaller and smaller.

Aside from their harmful effects on aquatic life, marine debris also interferes with navigation safety and seriously threatens human health. Studies have found that our oceans and waterways are polluted with different types of marine debris, which range from soda cans and plastic bags to fishing gear and abandoned vessels.

Today, no place on our planet is immune to this environmental problem. A large part of the trash and debris that gets washed up on our beaches comes from storm drains, sewers, and recreational activities along shorelines.