California

Marine debris can be dangerous for wildlife, damage sensitive habitats, and create safety and navigation hazards. But did you know that marine debris can also hurt the economies of coastal communities and decrease commercial fishing revenue? Marine debris can keep tourists away from beaches, compete with active fishing gear and reduce commercial catches, and cost small businesses money.

The Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is one of the NOAA Marine Debris Programs’s longest running Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project partners. Six years of data collection at locations along the Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo county coastline revealed the types and frequency of marine debris on the surveyed shorelines, as well as one particularly interesting and problematic type of debris. The survey data indicated that shotgun wads, the plastic piece inside a shotgun shell that separates the shot from the powder, are one of the top ten most commonly found plastic items on all surveyed beaches.

Although plastic pollution is not a new phenomenon, concerns over the environmental and human health implications of microplastics, or plastic pieces less than 5 mm in size, has grown rapidly over the past decade. These concerns stem from their potential to be ingested by wildlife, accumulate in animal bodies, and transfer contaminants up the food chain, as well as their widespread presence in the environment.

In 1967, soul singer Otis Redding wrote the hit song (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay while visiting a friend’s houseboat on Richardson’s Bay, an inlet on the northern portion of San Francisco Bay near the City of Sausalito. To this day, the area surrounding Richardson’s Bay has an eccentric bohemian vibe and is home to a melting pot of residents who share a historic maritime culture that started with the shipbuilding industry moving in during World War II.

California is home to 12% of the nation’s population, with 26 million people living in counties along its 3,427 mile coastline. The average American generates an average of 4.5 lbs of trash per day (EPA estimate as of 2017) multiplied by 26 million people, that's 117,000,000 lbs of trash generated just from California's coastal population for one day! Inevitably some portion of that waste is littered, lost, or “leaked” through waste management and can eventually reach California’s coastal ocean and become marine debris.

Imagine you’ve planned a big trip to the beach with your family and friends, loaded up the car with supplies or jumped on a plane, and traveled to your vacation spot, only to find a beach littered with plastic beverage bottles, stray fishing line, chip bags, cigarette butts, and other debris. Would you stay and play, or be on your way? What if there were no debris, would you be more likely to return in the future? These are the kinds of questions we asked to better understand the relationship between marine debris and the coastal tourism economy.

Despite the fact that cigarette smoking is on a steep decline, cigarette butts remain the top littered item in San Francisco, and the most common item found on beaches around the world. They’re easy to miss, but once you see them, you’ll never “unsee” them. Surfrider San Francisco’s Hold on to Your Butt program has one ambitious goal: to end cigarette litter so we never have to see those butts again. Through volunteer power, the program works to bring awareness to the environmental impact of the cigarette flick.

California is not only home to beaches, super blooms, and stars, but is also home to 12% of the population of the United States, and the fifth largest economy in the world. With such concentrated human and economic activity, marine debris can be a serious problem. However, California is leading the way on waste reduction and marine debris prevention efforts.

By: Sherry Lippiatt, California Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program

The NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) and California Ocean Protection Council (OPC) are pleased to announce the 2018 California Ocean Litter Prevention Strategy: Addressing Marine Debris from Source to Sea (Strategy). The Strategy identifies a broad range of actions aimed at preventing and reducing marine debris in California, and is the result of a wide range of input from government partners, non-governmental organizations, industry, and academics working to address the issue. The document provides a roadmap for action over the next six years, and is intended to increase collaboration and galvanize support for marine debris projects.

By: Sherry Lippiatt, California Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program

Ever joined a beach cleanup or shoreline survey and wondered “where did all of this marine debris come from?" In reality, there are likely multiple sources including direct littering by beachgoers, wind, stormwater runoff, and the ocean itself. In California, the relative significance of these sources changes seasonally. California is unique in that we have distinct wet (October through March) and dry (April through September) weather seasons, which have a big influence on the amount of trash that travels through stormwater systems and eventually makes its way to our coastlines.