Top 5 Types of Water Litter and Their Danger to Wildlife

Last month I discussed the top five litter products on land and how they affect wildlife. As we all know, every discarded item, no matter the size, must end up somewhere. Often litter ends up in waterways. With assistance from ditches, sewer systems, rivers and other bodies of water, litter can easily traverse across thousands of miles to wash up on your local beach.

This month, to coincide with the Ocean Conservancy’s 25th annual International Coastal Cleanup event on September 25th, let’s look at the top five litter products found in water and how they harm wildlife.

According to Ocean Conservancy, between 60 and 80 percent of ocean litter begins on land. Following the annual cleanup, an extensive report is compiled documenting the composition, location and quantity of garbage. Over 100 countries around the world and approximately half a million volunteers participated in the 2009 ICC. An astonishing 7.4 million pounds of debris (equaling over 10.2 million individual pieces) was gathered on that one day alone.

From the 2009 ICC data we find the following:

#5 Plastic beverage bottles (8.6 percent)
Plastic is lightweight and durable, making it an ideal choice for manufacturing. Put it in water and decomposition time slows down, meaning plastic will be around for a long time — about 450  years — potentially harming marine wildlife. BPA, a chemical compound in plastic bottles that's linked to health problems in humans, can cause reproductive disorders in shellfish and other species.

#4 Caps and lids (8.9 percent)
Caps and lids are not too large for a number of wildlife species to eat. Birds, like albatross in Hawaii, mistake them for eggs or squid and take them back to the nest.

#3 Food wrappers/containers (9.2 percent)
Both paper and plastic are used in food packaging. They can be mistaken for food and any traces of food on the packaging will attract hungry animals. Choking or blockages can lead to death.

#2 Plastic Bags (11 percent)
Plastic bags may not seem appetizing, but a sea turtle can mistake them for jellyfish. Blockages can occur, causing the turtle to starve to death if they don’t choke first. Other possibilities include animals becoming trapped inside a bag and suffocating or drowning to death.

#1 Cigarettes/cigarette filters (21 percent)
As with land litter, cigarettes/cigarette filters are the most prevalent litter type in water. Not only does wildlife mistakenly eat discarded cigarette parts, they may also be fed to offspring. No nutritional value is obtained from cigarettes, yet wildlife feel full after ingestion. Cigarettes are also highly toxic — as Chris Santiago wrote on the Environment blog, the chemicals in one filtered cigarette butt can kill half the fish living in a one liter container of water.

Although the top five litters discussed above are the most prevalent, discarded fishing lines by far cause the most injuries and deaths, followed by fishing nets. Animals, especially birds, become entangled in the lines and nets. Of the marine wildlife found dead in 2009, birds made up 41 percent.

Another litter-related problem is that floating debris can become transportation for organisms to hitch a ride on. Ocean currents assist in this process, allowing an alien species to relocate thousands of miles from home. A large scale example is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which has become home to a number of animals.

While the majority of litter is found along shorelines (and that's where cleanup efforts have been focused), a fair amount ends up trapped below the water’s surface, out to sea, and around inland waterways, where the composition is essentially the same, with cigarettes/cigarette filters in the number one spot. Of the top ten debris types found in 2009, all but cigarettes/cigarette filters are recyclable.

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Photo by Vince Alongi