Marine Debris

Beaches where threatened and endangered sea turtles nest must be cleaned of marine debris every year.

NPS/Pete Wintersteen

Marine Debris is one of the biggest challenges to Biscayne National Park and to marine environments around the world. What do we mean when using the term marine debris?

Marine debris is anything human-made and solid that ends up in our ocean, and it is a growing problem for all marine habitats. Marine debris can enter the environment from trash cans, storms, and discarded from, or blown off boats and from lost and abandoned fishing gear. It can travel to Biscayne National Park from local areas or from far away. In Biscayne fishing gear, plastic bottles, and household trash comprise most of this debris.

Most of the pollution in Biscayne National Park found in our marine and coastal habitats is made of plastic.

Effects on the Environment

Marine debris can entangle and/or entrap all kinds of wildlife. This can lead to physical injuries (such as lacerations and broken bones), infections, suffocation, and drowning.

Animals can unintentionally consume pollution while foraging, which can often kill them. Balloons are often ingested by sea turtles mistaking them for their preferred food, jelly fish.

Plants and stationary animals (such as corals and sponges) can be smothered, broken, uprooted, and otherwise injured or killed by contact with pollution by lost trap and fishing gear, anchors and lobster or crab traps.

Accumulations of marine debris can diminish habitat quality and affect nesting, feeding and other basic behaviors and movements of wildlife.

Over time, plastic debris breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces (microplastics), which is not only harder to remove from the environment, but which becomes more likely to be accidentally ingested by wildlife. A highly polluted area is disappointing and upsetting for visitors to a national park.

 

Sea turtles are susceptible to many types of marine debris, including fishing equipment like the trapline seen here.

NPS/Kara Wall

Example in Focus 1: Microplastics

Environmental factors like heat and sunlight, as well as just plain aging cause plastics, the most common type of marine debris, to break up into tiny pieces called microplastics. Plastic never really goes away; a large piece just continues to break down into smaller and smaller pieces until they cannot be seen. These tiny microscopic fragments can be consumed by animals and people. The total effects of this are still being studied, but certain potential effects involve plastic build up in an organism and leaching of toxic chemicals into the body.

The study of microplastics is ongoing, but the effects on the environment and people are not limited to marine debris. People unknowingly consume microplastics every day from things like plastic water bottles and food containers.

Example in Focus 2: Ghost Nets

Fishing nets that break away or are jettisoned create a loop of destruction that can last for years. A drifting net still acts effectively at catching marine life such as whales. Eventually the net will sink to the bottom, where it causes substantial damage to creatures living on the ocean floor like sponges and coral. In time, the net breaks free and drifts again through the water column entangling and killing marine life of all sizes all over.

Example in Focus 3: Turtles and Plastic

All seven species of sea turtles are endangered species in some part of their ranges. Five of these species are known to Biscayne National Park. To a turtle, a drifting plastic bag, balloon, or plastic bottle looks like a primary staple for turtles for millions of years: jelly fish. Soft plastics like ballons, when eaten by a turtle, will ball up in the throat of a turtle and choke or suffocate the animal to death. Harder plastics like shoes and plastic bottles can be found with many diamond-shaped holes in them. These are turtle bites. Once eaten, a turtle cannot pass these small pieces of plastic. Over time the turtle’s stomach becomes full of plastic and the animal will starve to death with a full belly.

Like any other animal, turtles can become entangled in drifting materials like fishing line, but unlike most other marine species, sea turtles come ashore to nest on beaches. Beaches throughout the part and around the world are inundated with plastic. When coming ashore, sea turtles can become entangled, or are unable to reach a suitable site. Similarly, when eggs hatch from a nest, the tiny new baby turtles cannot easily crawl across marine debris, resulting in either death from exhaustion and exposure, or slowing them down enough to be more easily targeted by predators.

 

Ghost nets can be massive and inflict tremendous damage to the natural habitats throughout the ocean.

NPS Photo

 

Small plastics like bottlecaps are often eaten by wildlife like turtles.

NPS/Pete Wintersteen

 

A hard day's work cleaning up a turtle nesting beach.

NPS/Pete Wintersteen

How Can I Help?

REFUSE single-use plastic products like plastic foam cups, plastic bags, straws, and utensils.

REDUCE the amount of trash you produce by buying things that use less packaging.

REUSE food containers, bags, water bottles, coffee cups, and other daily use items.

VOLUNTEER to help our parks. Take time to safely remove marine debris to help the ocean habitats. Contact your local park or conservation organization to find out what YOU can do.

Every year hundreds of volunteers help Biscayne National Park by assisting with beach clean ups. These clean ups are a rewarding way for people to enjoy their beautiful park (for free!) and to help protect wonderful marine animals like sea turtles. Click here to find out more!

 

Past Partnerships

Women Veteran Divers Assist National Park Service with Marine Debris Clean-Up

Five female veterans of the U.S. Armed Services have joined the National Park Service (NPS) for a week of removing marine debris from Biscayne National Park from July 5-11.

The veterans are sponsored by the Wounded American Veterans Experience SCUBA Project (WAVES), a 501c (3) non-profit established to provide opportunities for veterans with service-connected disabilities and their families to experience scuba diving. Other partners in the project include the Women Divers Hall of Fame, an organization that recognizes women leaders and innovators in the diving community. The project was made possible through funding from the National Park Foundation, the official charitable partner of the National Park Service.

The veterans are part of an all-female National Park Service and partner organization dive team, with staff members from Biscayne National Park and the NPS Submerged Resources Center, as well as the University of Miami. The team is working from a Horizon Divers charter boat, also crewed by an entirely female team.

 

Teen SCUBAnauts Partner with Biscayne National Park for a Three Day Stewardship Visit

Four teenaged divers from the North Carolina chapter of SCUBAnauts International partnered with Biscayne National Park for a three-day marine stewardship visit from October 6-8, 2021.

The teens worked alongside the park’s Resource Management Team removing invasive lionfish and clearing marine debris. They captured 28 lionfish and eliminated 668 pounds of debris, including monofilament, fishing rods and reels, the remains of broken-down commercial lobster traps, a car battery, and many beer bottles.

Each SCUBAnaut diver is trained and certified by the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) and has about 100 scientific dives under their belt making them highly qualified and experienced despite their youth. The SCUBAnauts International™ marine science education program was founded by Captain David Olson in Palm Harbor, Florida, in May 2001, with the aim of introducing young men and women, ages 12-18, to informal science education through underwater exploration.