Three weeks ago I found a plastic bin with a Japanese or Chinese symbol on it at Stonefield Beach State Wayside, Oregon. As mentioned in the post "
Tsunami Debris?", my husband wouldn't let me put it in the car so I left it in the parking area thinking someone from the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department would collect it. Today we went back so I could collect plastic, while my husband looked for agates.
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| Plastic Bin Monster |
To my surprise, the bin was still there and it was filled with plastic pieces people must have collected at the beach (and one dog feces bag). Also, I'm not sure if three weeks of rain could've cleaned the bin this well, or if someone in the neighborhood (there are houses within walking distance) rinsed it off and brought it back so people could drop off their findings (?). Either way, evidently people are willing to pick up and dispose of plastic debris, but due to Oregon's "pack it in, pack it out" motto, there are no trash receptacles of any sort. I plan on looking further into this to see what I can do to either get someone to pick up the plastic trash, or what I could put out there that I could collect and dispose of once a month.
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| Letters from the Russian (Cryllic) alphabet |
On today's hunt I was hoping to find pieces with foreign looking writing on it, of which I found several including one with letters from the Russian alphabet. Additionally, once I got down on my knees to pick small colorful pieces out of some wrack, I found plastic pellets! During my entire research on Florida's beaches I found three (four if you count the blue one, see image below) resin pellets, so I partially assumed large quantities were an urban myth; however, once I realized they were on this strip of beach, I came across dozens. I didn't have the proper equipment to collect them per
International Pellet Watch's standards, so these few will become part of my personal collection and next time my focus will be on properly collecting pellets using metal tweezers to pick them up and an aluminum pouch for storage.
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Three resin pellets, two beads, and potentially a
blue resin pellet found in FL, 2013. |
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Small portion of resin pellets at Stonefield Beach
Wayside, Oregon, November 2015. |
Wow Angela! I hope you find someone to report this to. I wonder about the source of these pellets. Also--would you mind providing us with some sort of scale on your pellet photos? I can't quite figure it out.
ReplyDeleteNever mind the scale--once I clicked on the pic I saw that you were holding them in your gloved hand.
DeleteA question about the plastics others placed into your plastic bin--does it appear that these were ocean plastics that folks picked up as they strolled along the beach or is this garbage that folks decided not to 'pack out' simply because a 'garbage disposal bin' was provided?
ReplyDeleteI did not dig through the bin, but from what I could see it contained weathered broken pieces of plastic (what I usually collect), some pieces had dead algae, bivalves, and barnacles. There was a plastic bag and a clear bag with broken pieces, a weathered old toothbrush, and two plastic bottles with the wrap around labels removed - I think if somebody just didn't want to take those back home after using them they would've left the labels on.
DeleteVery interesting ! Today in class, my Marine Biology professor made a comment about pollutants being tossed over board as a standard procedure when he was in the navy( which I am assuming was about 25-30 years ago). How well are the rules enforced regarding dumping plastics and other pollutants into the ocean especially for big commercialized boats such as ones used for the navy or goods transportation, even cruise ships?
ReplyDeleteIt will take me some time to properly look into this on my own, and I plan to address this question in depth next semester. Also, I will be taking an "International Water Policy" course at the University of Oregon in 2017, but you will more than likely have graduated from DSC by the time I can report what I've learned. The books I've read on plastic pollution generally point out that fishing vessels in international waters are an issue because they toss everything off board to reduce weight and make space for catch, including the plastic nets which then become "ghost nets" floating about in the ocean. As for cruise ships, in 2013 I did a group research project on cruise ship pollution for OCE1001. I figured the disposal of garbage at sea would be a big factor, but since the ships regularly dock at ports and get rid of garbage, a bigger issue are the liquid wastes generated on cruise ships, which often are released untreated at sea (specific distance from shore). When caught disposing of this on land or close to shore, the fines seemed minimal compared to the profits. On another note, however, I have not, yet, researched how places like Haiti deal with the garbage that cruise ships leave behind.
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