DISL: Trashing GC shorelines

Trash in the ocean, and along Gulf Coast shorelines, is an economic, environmental, health, and aesthetic problem causing serious challenges to communities. In an effort to identify issues, researchers kept tabs on marine debris that washed ashore monthly for over two years at 12 sites on nine barrier islands from North Padre Island, Texas, to Santa Rosa, Fla. Researchers from the Dauphin Island (Ala.) Sea Lab (DISL) and the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve teamed up for a study to document and identify the issues. Their findings are documented in the publication, ‘Accumulation and distribution of marine debris on barrier islands across the northern Gulf of Mexico’, in ScienceDirect’s Marine Pollution Bulletin. Trash was sorted by type, frequency, and location. The most shocking discovery was that 10 times more trash washes up on the Texas coast than any of the other Gulf states throughout the year. Most of the trash, over 69 percent, was plastic. (Source: DISL 12/28/18)