According to my environmental science teacher, back in the day, “the solution to pollution was dilution.” To dispose of large quantities of chemical waste and other materials were dumped into a large body of water, the ocean. The ocean is large, covering over 70% of Earth’s surface. However, those materials are starting to build up and affect marine life. Toxic wastes dumped into the ocean settle on the ocean floor. Some fish in this area consume the toxins. Fish that consume these fish indirectly ingest the toxins, and the toxins travel up the food chain, affecting many species. Also, some fish and penguins are getting caught in soda can plastic rings (1). The plastic buildup in the ocean is so large that there is an island of accumulated plastic called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (2).
(aerial view of Pacific Garbage Patch)
(underwater view)
To combat ocean pollution, students at the French International School of Design, led by Elie Ahovi, are developing an ocean Roomba. In other words, they are designing an ocean drone that collects garbage in the ocean. Once the garbage is inside the drone, it is broken up into little pieces. The drone will run on water-powered batteries.
(Marine Drone in action)
The burning question is: How will it know the difference between an animal and garbage? Easy. The drone has a sonic emitter that produces a signal that irritates fish. The fish will then be cleared and the drone can go on its way. When the drone is full, it will dock near a boat that will take empty the garbage in the drone, and the drone will return to its work (3).
The idea sounds wonderful: a self-sustaining garbage man of the ocean. However, there are still some questions that need to be answered? How will the garbage brought to the ship then be disposed? How many ships will there be that are in place to dock the drones? Where is the funding coming from to pay for sailors to hang out and collect the trash from the drones? Or will all new ships be built with the capability to handle the drones?
I have great hope for the development of this Marine Drone and its ability to decrease ocean pollution. I hope the previous questions are solved.
In other news, Seattle’s Best Coffee may become World’s Best Coffee, due to its domination on planet Earth. High levels of caffeine have been discovered off the shores of the Northwest.
(The caffeine’s addition to the ocean isn’t quite as rapid or extreme as the Boston Tea Party, but who know? Maybe one day caffeine levels could reach as high as if tea was just dumped into the sea!)
Caffeine has been studied in the ocean before, but this was the first study to analyze caffeine levels off the coast of Oregon and Washington. The high levels of caffeine in these waters are suspected to be a result of poor sewage treatment and runoff from streets to septic tanks. There is yet to be found any effect of the caffeine on marine critters. The only evidence of an impact was on mussels. They produced a special protein under the stress. The only conclusion that can be made based on the high levels of caffeine is that other hormones may be leaking into the ocean and affecting life that we don’t even know about yet (4). For now, Seattle’s Best will continue to take over the world.
(1) http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/ocean_pollution.htm
(2) http://www.kidzworld.com/article/19102-pacific-oceans-plastic-island
(3) http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/64705-garbage-eating-drone-destroys-ocean-pollution
(4) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/pacific-ocean-caffeine-pollution_n_1747891.html
Alaina thank you for bringing the issue of ocean pollution to my attention. I rarely read on the issues of pollution on a global level. Usually I find myself reading the doom and gloom articles about America’s contribution to climate change, and this was a refreshing note of hope.
I found it very surprising that there exists an island made entirely of garbage in the Pacific. (I couldn’t help but recall finding memo, and the australian Beta Fish friend of Nemo’s)
On a serious note I am delighted to hear that the problem is beginning to be addressed, and with such innovative technology. The struggles of labor, cost, and consequence – as you’ve cited – are certainly difficult ones. But, these struggles exist in most every industry. I am hopeful that these struggles will be overcome and I appreciate the overall tone and style of your writing. I always find your blogging very easy to read and subtly friendly. I appreciate that.
Finally, I do not care for seattle’s best coffee…. My father owns burger kings as part of his development endeavors and when they switched from BK Joe to seattle’s best I was disappointed. But! now we have a BK Joe machine in the pantry, which is cool.
If for no other reason than personal petty distaste… I’d like to see seattle’s best slapped with a heavy lawsuit because their coffee stinks. Hahaha
It was an enjoyable read Alaina, thank you.
This Ocean Roomba is a great, efficient device for cleaning up the ocean. Some questions do arise though. Including the ones you mentioned, we need to consider that the ocean is massive; we can’t have thousands of these devices stationed at different points around the world, otherwise why should we bother about not polluting in the first place? I agree with Richie and Alex that the solution is education. But again, this is considerably difficult to implement. The organizations responsible for the majority of the pollution are only concerned with profit, and frankly it is considerably inexpensive to dump waste into the ocean. These days, the organizations are calling the shots, so it looks grim.
I found an article published by the NRDC that addresses plastic pollution, but honestly all the solutions they offer are things we’ve heard over and over again: take responsibility, hold the producers responsible, pass legislation, etc… I really like this “roomba” idea because it seems like it will yield concrete results. A machine like this has a set purpose – find solid trash and clean it up. Its also neat how its water-powered. I don’t know much about the science of powering machines, but that seems pretty sustainable. However, I think Richie raises a good point that not all the pollution is solid substance. Chemical by-products constitute a good percentage of pollution, so that needs to be addressed as well. But, at the end of the day, considering the wasteful nature of our society, a sustainable clean-up crew is positive. You’ve given me hope.
Also, I don’t know if anyone’s heard, but marine biologists in Japan captured some pictures of a live giant squid. This is a big deal since we’ve only seen corpses. Shortly thereafter, using a bait system attached to a camera, they accidentally hooked a 25 foot female. There’s really awesome video of the creature, but unfortunately it died shortly after being reeled in. While I get excited that we finally have footage of the closest thing to Cthulu, I couldn’t help feeling it was cruel the way they treated it. I mention this because it’s in the same vein as your topic. We not only harm the ocean in terms of pollution, but the exploitation of its creatures (some of which are truly fascinating) is just as big of an issue.
The Marine Drone sounds like an exciting and helpful tool to clean up our oceans and try to clean up dumping sites. However, this solution only cleans up after the dumping has already occurred. How can we stop people from dumping in the first place? Legislation has been in place since the 1970s that has banned the dumping of nuclear, industrial, and other forms of waste into the oceans, yet it continues to occur illegally. So how can we do more to stop the dumping of waste in the oceans from happening in the first place? Besides increased regulation and enforcement, I firmly believe that education is the solution. Dumping a bit of waste in such a huge body of water may seem harmless, but it’s not. The chemicals in the waste have a huge impact on the fish and marine life and the effect goes all the way up the food chain to humans as well. I recently watched a really good video of a marine biologist Stephen Palumbi explaining the effect that waste can have on the entire ecosystem, humans included (1).
Palumbi and some colleagues tested whale meat in Japan only to discover that some of the so-called “whale meat” was actually dolphin meat that contained extremely high levels of DDT and other heavy metals. The chemicals from waste dumped into the ocean are then absorbed by plankton that are eaten by fish that make up the diets of the dolphins. Humans who consume this tainted dolphin meat absorbs the toxins, and nursing human mothers can transmit them to their children (1). Palumbi and his colleagues went public with the news and Japan passed legislation that makes mislabeling food extremely difficult. Thankfully, Palumbi and his colleagues were able to prevent thousands of Japanese from ingesting these toxins, but that does not solve the waste problem. Hopefully, further educating people about the importance of our oceans and how important they are for our own health and success will lead to a change in mindset and the end of ocean dumping.
(1) http://marinebio.org/oceans/ocean-dumping.asp
Your introduction acts as a good reminder of where we’ve come from. We used to wantonly dump things into the environment and just hope to find the right place to dump. Then we started, and continuing to, put limits on the amount of pollution allowed. In the future with technology like the ocean rumba and carbon sequestration we hope to have methods to remove pollution, waste and emissions from the environment. The arc of human interaction with the environment is long but it bends toward sustainable (I apologize for butchering that quote). We’re clearly not close to finishing the second step of the transition, as MASSIVE amounts of pollution and emission are released, but it does offer some hope that we’re going in the right direction, be it at a rather gradual pace. The toughest part of managing pollution of the sea is that a large percentage of it in nonpoint source pollution. This category is so hard to control because it not one specific source but rather small amounts contributed by many different sources ranging from farms and forrests to boats and septic tanks. An example of this is a few drops of engine fluid or oil that accumulate from millions from cars and trucks and eventually has a big impact (1). Its tough battle fighting a known enemy, but fighting against countless small ones is even tougher. A quick four minute view if you have the time, this video really illustrates how much damage we are causing to pristine, beautiful wilderness: http://www.wimp.com/beseen/
(1)http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pollution.html