School of Marine Sciences students participate in marine debris data collection
On Sunday September 17th, students in Dr. Aaron Strong’s Marine Pollution Policy course participated in a beach clean-up at Sears Island on Penobscot Bay. Like most beach clean-ups, the students and professor picked up litter and debris from the shoreline, which ranged from plastic bottles and cans to chunks of construction debris and lost fishing buoys. They collected an impressive 165 lbs of trash, much of it plastic. “During our trip to Sears Island, it was astonishing how much trash we picked up, even though it’s a nature sanctuary. It’s eye opening and demonstrates the widespread problem of ocean pollution, all around the world,” said Kai La Spina, a junior in the School of Ecology and Environmental Science, studying marine ecosystems.
However, this was more than a clean-up effort. Before they collected each piece of trash, students carefully recorded each item they found as part of an international marine debris data collection effort led by the Ocean Conservancy, known as the International Coastal Clean Up. In Maine, International Coastal Clean Up activities are organized by the Maine Coastal Program, and the data that Strong and his students collected will be sent to Augusta, where it will be entered as part of a worldwide database on the locations and types of marine debris that litter shorelines around the world. “Collecting data on plastic and other pollution – whether amounts change year by year, where certain hotspots collect due to ocean currents and what kinds of trash are found where – is really important for marine debris reduction efforts,” explains Strong, an Assistant Professor of Marine Policy in the School of Marine Sciences.