1 / 7

Externalities of Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

Externalities of Plastic Pollution in the Ocean. Gwen Holdgreiwe April 23, 2009 Environmental Economics 331. Ocean Facts. Salt water covers 71% of Earth 97% of all water on Earth is salt water contains 80% of all living matter Source of 60 Billion tons of food/year

erika
Download Presentation

Externalities of Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Externalities of Plastic Pollution in the Ocean Gwen Holdgreiwe April 23, 2009 Environmental Economics 331

  2. Ocean Facts • Salt water covers 71% of Earth • 97% of all water on Earth is salt water • contains 80% of all living matter • Source of 60 Billion tons of food/year • 2 Billion ppl. worldwide live w/in 100km of coastlines • Algalita Marine Research Foundation experiment on North Pacific

  3. Global Pollution • Sources: municipal/industrial runoff or sloppy disposal by traveling ships • Fishing vessels toss 340,000 tons of waste into the ocean • Navies & Cruise ships dump 1 million pounds / day • Increased 10% a year for past 20 years

  4. Cost-Benefit Analysis MC Price MB Quantity • Costs: • Greater threat than oil spills & pesticides • 100,000 marine animals die / year • Debris on the beaches • No organism can biodegrade plastic • Deaths of sea turtles & albatross birds • Benefits: • Cheap cost of disposal • Alternative to land pollution • Eliminates cost of recycling

  5. Problems • Governments have done little & claim they need to focus on more important issues • Underdeveloped countries don’t have funds to enforce stricter anti-pollution laws *Dead Albatross bird whose lungs & rib cage are entirely filled with trash and plastic waste

  6. Solutions • Some European nations have placed incinerators on their ships to burn all the wastes products • The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships forbids US dumping w/in 320 km of coasts & none at all in the Gulf of Mexico • Chinese cities banned the use of foam lunch boxes • Taiwan banned plastic bags and foam containers • Total Recycling has developed optical technology to improve the manual sorting of mingled plastics to make recycling more efficient

  7. Works Cited • Anderson, David A. Environmental Economics and Natural Resource Management. Kentucky: Pensive Press, 2006. • Hill, Marquita K. Understanding Environmental Pollution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. • Reed, Lawrence. “Recycling is Often Wasteful.” Garbage and Waste. Ed. Cozic, Charles P. San Diego: Greenhaven Press Inc., 1997. • Samuelson, Paul A. and William D. Nordhaus. Economics. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2005. • Starr, Roger. “The Effectiveness of Recycling is Exaggerated.” Garbage and Waste. Ed. Cozic, Charles P. San Diego: Greenhaven Press Inc., 1997. • Steger, Will and Jon Bowermaster. Saving the Earth: A Citizen’s Guide to Environmental Action. New York: Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc., 1990. • Steuteville, Robert. “Technology is Improving Plastics Recycling.” Garbage and Waste. Ed. Cozic, Charles P. San Diego: Greenhaven Press Inc., 1997. • Tammemagi, Hans. The Waste Crisis: Landfills, Incinerators, and the Search for a Sustainable Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

More Related