Marine Waste—Sources, Fate, Risks, Challenges and Research Needs

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive and cross-cutting review of key marine waste issues, taking into account: sources, fate, risks, transport pathways, threats, legislation, current challenges, and knowledge gaps. The growing amount of both human-created waste in seas and oceans and waste reaching marine ecosystems from land is one of today’s challenges for the global economy and the European Union. It is predicted that if no decisive steps are taken to limit the amount of this type of waste, there may be more plastic waste than fish in the oceans after 2050. The influence of microplastics and nanoplastics on living organisms remains undiagnosed. Within the international and EU law, solutions are being developed to properly manage waste on board ships and to reduce the impact of processes related to the recycling of the vessels on the environment. Currently, over 80% of ships are dismantled in the countries of South Asia, in conditions that threaten the environment and the safety of workers. After World War 2, large quantities of chemical weapons were deposited in the seas. Steel containers with dangerous substances residing in the sea for over 70 years have begun leaking, thus polluting water. For many years, radioactive waste had also been dumped into marine ecosystems, although since 1993 there has been a total ban on such disposal of radionuclides. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on marine waste generation has also been presented as a significant factor influencing marine waste generation and management.

Some Aspects of the Thermochemical Route for the Valorization of Plastic Wastes, Part I: Reduction of Iron Oxides by Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

“…The thermal behavior of the clay sample under the same conditions as those used for the PVC samples is described in Figure 7c. After a small mass loss at a low temperature, a significant percentage of ML was observed at a temperature higher than 400 • C, reaching a plateau of about 8.9% at T > 750 • C. Results of the XRD analysis and early findings [34,35] seem to indicate that a full de-hydroxylation of kaolinite is achieved at T < 700 • C. Knowing that the relative mass of water in pure kaolinite [Al 2 Si 2 O 5 (OH) 4…”

“…Note that around 19% of plastic waste [ 3 ] is mismanaged (uncontrolled landfills) and often dumped in seas and oceans. As noted by Dąbrowska et al [ 4 ], there may be more plastic waste than fish in the oceans after 2050 if no decisive steps are taken to limit the amount of this waste.…”

Transitioning to Sustainable Life below Water

“…On average, more than eight million metric tons of plastics are dumped into oceans every year (Jambeck et al 2015;UNEP 2017), leading to spectacular examples of plastic litter accumulation in the oceans, for example, the Pacific garbage patch, North Atlantic garbage patch (Atlantic Ocean), and Indian Ocean garbage patch (Lebreton et al 2018;D ąbrowska et al 2021). Approximately five trillion tons of plastic debris are estimated to be floating in the oceans around the globe (Eriksen et al 2014;Barboza et al 2018).…”

Investigation of Microplastic Pollution in the Sediment and Commercial Fish Species of Gemlik Bay (Marmara Sea) by Microscopic and Spectroscopic Methods

“…That is why, studies on their accumulation have recently become the focus of pollution monitoring studies. According to the results of the modeling studies, the number of plastics in the aquatic environment has been thought to be 150 million tons, and considering this situation, it has been predicted to be 1 ton of plastic waste per every 3 tons of sh up to 2025 (Dąbrowska et al 2021).…”