NPS and NOAA curate an exhibit of marine debris
That plastic bottle in a field. A screw top to your favorite soda. All those fishing nets and lines. These are the objects we rarely think about as leading contributors to marine debris, but that’s what they are.
New research by the National Park Service in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found plastic in various grades to make up 60 percent of all waste found in Alaska’s waterways across 28 beaches surveyed.
The findings are now on display at the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve.
The exhibit “One Big Ocean, One Big Issue” draws on eight weeks of trash pickup and data collection conducted in the summer of 2015 on beaches in five of Alaska’s National Park Service units: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Katmai National Park, Kenai Fjords National Park, and Wrangell-St. Elias. These are beaches inaccessible by roads, but that had amassed more than 11 tons of marine debris removed, according to the NPS.
Scientists, volunteers, and youth collected and weighed everything from plastic, to rubber, to rope, foam and netting. In some cases, ATVs
and refrigerators were tallied. What wasn’t included: glass, ferrous metals, and processed lumber, to name a few.
The data helps draw out the story of marine debris across Alaska’s waterways, providing a nuanced portrait of what makes up the waste. For instance, 40 percent of detritus retrieved represented random gear perhaps dislodged from commercial fishing boats stormed out at sea.
Katie Cullen, Interpretation and Education Program Manager at the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve says these localized statistics help individualize our different roles as contributors to waste. “That was one of our top goals,” said Cullen. “Asking the question, ‘How can I help as a person, as an individual?’”
The marine debris removal project evolved from years of existing research and advocacy including passage of the 2006 Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act. The law requires NOAA to locate and track human-made materials disposed into marine environments. It was followed by the 2018 Save Our Seas Act which reauthorized the MDA for four years and strengthened cleanup efforts at an international level.
Such global reach became significant in the aftermath of the catastrophic tsunami in Japan in 2011. From that natural disaster, ocean currents carried approximately 1.5 million tons of floating debris across the North Pacific to US coastlines including Alaska.
For the Northwest Arctic, there are also a new wave of concerns on coastal expert’s radar: diminishing sea ice. “So as the ice moves out for longer and longer periods of time you’re actually having more opportunity for debris to come up on the shores,” said Tahzay Jones, Coastal Ecologist of the NPS’s Natural Resources Team in Alaska.
In a promotional video highlighting the 2015 study, Jones says understanding waste on a hyperlocal level can help have an outsize impact in how people understand and treat waste. “How are the impacts of debris changing?”
The exhibit at the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve offers an interactive map and other models to explore marine debris all week.
The Visitor Center will be open through Friday between 1 p.m. and 4:30 pm.
A few COVID considerations: Masks are required in the exhibit space and visitor center. Visitor Center capacity is four people at a time.