Review Of Literature On Beach Littering
Based on the Ziyi, Q. and Xuan, T. J. , the beaches in China contains of different plastics of famous brands, such as Master Kong instant noodles, Want-Want rice crackers and Coca-Cola. Mostly beverages and snack-food brands can be found in every beaches which make famous brands such as Red Bull, Master Kong, and Nongfu spring accountable. Five to 13 million tons of plastic waste are deposited in the world’s oceans every year. The Kamilo Point in Hawaii is now like a wasteland despite of having tide pools and lava rock pockets. Because of the wind and ocean current, thousands of pounds of man-made trash have been accumulated to this beach each year. Some call it Plastic Beach because of being one of the dirties beach in the world. It became a graveyard of world’s junk and a stark reminder that we can never really throw away plastics.
According to Katz, B. (2018), the sand of Montesinos Beach in Dominican Republic is deposited with different kinds of plastic ashore by the waves. More than 500 public workers have been dispatched to deal with the problem in coordination with the Dominican Republic navy and army in which they have accumulated 30 tons of plastics materials from the beach. These plastics on the beach was just a small part of trash being dumped in the water and washed out to the sea. However, the Dominican Republic is not the only nation contributing to this problem. Today, there are lots of reminders about the impact of this problem to the marine ecosystems, like the discovery of plastic materials in the belly of a deceased whale in Thailand coast. Not because an island is inhabited, it will became garbage free.
According to Parker, L. (2017), almost 3, 500 of pieces of plastic is being deposited to the island by the ocean current. Some of the accumulated trash in not visible to the human eye and buried under the sand of the beach. This accumulation became troublesome since the island itself is one of the world’s biggest marine reserves and that is practically untouched by human presence
There are different kinds of laws that the Philippines have adopted to help mitigate the solid wastes. The problem is that this laws and the bans included in it do not work well to the community since its members did not understand the consequences or know the reason behind the implementation. This lack of awareness about solid waste and its effects on oceans and the local waterways is ultimately crippling the process of addressing the problem. And to solve this large and growing problem, a collaborative effort is needed where the community members will be actively involved.
According to McDermott, A. (2017), the San Fernando, Pampanga can be a role model of its neighboring cities in the Philippines in fighting against plastic pollution. The city used trash pickers to collect the pre-sorted recyclable in different households then bring it to 35 waste warehouses through-out the entire San Fernando. Though the problem in plastics does not originated or cannot be blamed to the households since different international companies are actually selling it to densely populated urban areas, this approach in assessing the problem in plastics help the city reduce litter and pollution. The city is now recycling and composting more than 75 percent of waste which cost about 80 percent less than using garbage trucks to haul and transfer wastes from households to waste warehouses.
In Rhode Island beaches, the managers of different towns choose between two policies – Carry in/Carry out or providing receptacles – depending on different factors such as expectation to litters left by the visitors, disposal cost, amenities being provide, and aesthetics. From the interview made, there is now a summary of reasons why certain policies is chosen by the managers, and goals or concerns managers have when it comes to managing litter. If the visitors expect a service of trash receptacles, then the better policy will be trash receptacles, according to Benson, S. (2017). Since tourist nowadays are being attracted to different beaches because of its stress-cleansing effect, different tourist spots that offers good and cleaner beaches is generating higher incomes. However, uncleaned beaches destroy the tourism of a community. According to Ryan, P. G. (2000), 85% of the residents and tourists would not visit a beach if the litter is denser. And 97% of all visitors decided not to visit a beach that comprises more than 10 larger debris. The potential loss of visitors due to the low standard of beach cleanliness will significantly affect the national and regional economy of Cape Peninsula.
Based on Silva-Cavalcanti, et al. (2009), plastics were the most common litter in beaches. Coming from the residents inhabiting near the area, and tourists. The quantity of the litters accumulating in the area differs depending on the season, but the quality remains the same. The morphology of the beach and strandline depositional conditions as responsible for this differences. The beach deposition dynamics was reflected in the patters of litter deposition. Higher quantity of items deposited was determined through the favorable depositional conditions which concludes of being more polluted. During dry-season, the beach has low pollution and slightly polluted during rainy season and associated with decrease of cleaning services and higher river flow. The susceptible areas in beach litters can be identified by observing the beach morphology in which will need more focus for preventive measures planning and cleaning services optimization from the local authorities. There is an overestimation in measuring the contamination of microplastics in the marine waters of North-Western Australia.
According to Kroon, F. , et al. (2018), they presented an analysis workflow to quantify microplastics contamination in marine waters of North-Western Australia. It resulted to only one-third (1/3) of first identified particles were found to be microplastic. Their analysis workflow suggested that most reported concentrations of microplastics contamination in marine water are overestimated which particularly from those studies that only partially or even did not chemically characterized potential anthropogenic particles using spectroscopy. Furthermore, plastics can make up a significant proportion of anthropogenic microplastics in marine waters based on the findings demonstrated.
