POLLUTION &CONTROL

MARINE POLLUTION

CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• MARINE POLLUTION
• POLLUTANTS: SOURCES AND THEIR
EFFECTS
• PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF MARINE
POLLUTION
• CONCLUSION
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INTRODUCTION:
Oceans cover about 71% of the Earth’s surface. They
play an important role in the chemical and biological
balance of the life on the earth. They are vital to our
food security, commerce and transportation. But
human activity has troubled the health of oceans. The
habitats of marine mammals and fish have been
degraded severely, with pollution responsible for the
mass deaths of fish, mammals and corals.
Organochloric pollutants,
pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and a
range of other toxic pollutants accumulate within
fishes later moving up the food chain to cause
reproductive disorders.
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What is Marine Pollution?:

It is defined as the discharge of waste substances into
the sea resulting in harm to living resources, hazards
to human health, hindrance to fishery and impairment
of quality for use of sea-water. Marine pollution is
associated with the changes in physical, chemical and
biological conditions of the sea water.
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POLLUTANTS: SOURCES AND THEIR EFFECTS

Pollutants can simply define as the materials which cause pollution. The following are the important pollutants
that cause the marine pollution.
• Sewage
• Pesticides
• Plastic wastes
• Metallic wastes
• Oil
• Sediment plumes (by deep sea mining)
• Heat
• Radioactive waste
• Dredge spoil
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SEWAGE:
 Sewage may be entering the sea

– By direct drainage

– From inland towns and

industries.

– Tipping at sea from ships.

 Detrimental effects of sewage include

– Eutrophication

– Deoxygenation

– Foul deposits, Reduced salinity,

Infection and toxic residues,

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PESTICIDES:
 Pesticides are organically active chemicals which are used for killing the
pests.

 Pesticides may enter the oceans

– From the atmosphere after aerial spraying,
– From overland runoff of sprayed areas.
– From intentional dumping in the sea.

 Pesticides affects food chain directly.

 These are more and more concentrated in fish, seagulls, seals, penguins and
marine planktons.

 PCBs have been found to have a series effect on this aquatic animal’s
reproductive cycle. And known to cause patches on the skin,
immunotoxicity, kidney damage, weight loss and tumor formation in otters.
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PLASTIC WASTES:
The mass of plastic in the oceans may be as high as
one hundred million metric tons. Many animals that
live on or in the sea consume flotsam by mistake, as it
often looks similar to their natural prey. Plastic debris,
when bulky or tangled, is difficult to pass, and may
become permanently lodged in the digestive tracts of
these animals, blocking the passage of food and
causing death through starvation or infection. Fishing
nets entangle fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks,
dugongs, crocodiles, sea birds, crabs, and other
creatures, restricting movement, causing starvation,
laceration and infection, and, in those that need to
return to the surface to breathe, suffocation.
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persistent toxins are PCBs, DDT, pesticides, furans, dioxins, phenols and radioactive waste. Heavy metals which are
toxic or poisonous .
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METALLIC WASTES:
 Metallic chemical elements have a relatively high density and toxic or poisonous at low concentrations. Examples are mercury, lead,
nickel, arsenic, cadmium and so on.

 Metallic wastes can be enter the marine environment naturally

– through weathering of the earth’s crust.
– from rivers or by direct discharges.
– through the atmosphere also.
– These can enter the sea through oil spill also.

 The use of antifouling paint on the bottoms of boats has been implicated as a major source of heavy metals in waters.

 These toxic metals can accumulate in the tissues of many species of aquatic life.

 When we consume such fishes, it will affect our nervous system, kidneys, brains, respiratory system or even it will lead us to death.
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METALLIC WASTES:
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OIL:
 Oil may enter the sea water by number of ways as follows;
• Cargo tanker washings at sea and international discharge of oily wastes from tank washings and accidental
spillages pollute the sea water severely.
• Bilge pumping at sea
• Import oil losses: collisions in port
• Tanker accidents and maritime accidents due to collision, fire, explosion or grounding also result in oil
release in water.
• Oil leakage from pipelines
• The blowout of wells, disposal of drilling mud, accidental damages to offshore drilling rigs add to oil
pollution in water.
• Oily wastes from oil fields or refineries near the coast.
• Oil spills mixed with urban sewage, silt, plastics, pesticides and insidious toxic compounds are pervasive
and complex the pollution problems in sea.
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OIL:
 The overall detrimental effects of oil pollution sea water are as follows;
• Reduction in dissolved oxygen.
• Reduction in light penetration.
• Oil spilling causes lethal toxicity to aquatic flora.
• Smothering coats of oil have killed lichens and algae along the shore lines.
• Sea otters will die when their fur become saturated with oil by losing insulation.
• Waste from oil refineries and discharged petroleum from ships cause heavy damage to fishery.
• Hydrocarbons in oil get incorporated in body tissues of marine animals.
• When the concentration of crude oil in the sea water reaches 0.02ppm, fish eggs begin to hatch irregularly
or late, while the development of already-hatched young fish or larval crabs and lobsters becomes
abnormal at oil concentrations between 1 and 100ppm.
• When men consume the fishes from oil polluted sea water, it may result in breathing problems, and can
damage liver and kidneys.
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SEDIMENT PLUMES (BY

DEEP SEA MINING):
 Because of deep sea mining, the removing parts of
the sea floor, disturbs the habitat of benthic
organisms.

 Plumes are caused when the tailings from mining

(usually fine particles) are dumped back into the
ocean, creating a cloud of particles floating in the
water. There are two types of plumes:
• Near bottom plumes
• Surface plumes
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HEAT:
 Accumulation of unusable heat from human activities can disrupts
ecosystems in the marine environment.

 The most important sources of thermal marine pollution are the

nuclear power plants and Thermal power plants.

 These power plants use the sea water for cooling. This water is
generally returned to the sea at temperatures 11 to 220C (20-
400F), which is higher than it was initially.

 One nuclear power plant may use as much as one billion gallons of
sea water per day.

 Marine life is extremely sensitive to changes in water temperature.

Higher temperatures can lead to premature spawning, fish
migration, lack of oxygen or death of marine life.
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RADIOACTIVE WASTE:
 Radioactive materials enter to the oceans mainly from following
ways:-
• From natural background source:
• From fallout of nuclear weapons testing.
• From operation of nuclear reactors through intentional and
unintentional direct releases.
• Mining and processing of ores to produce radioisotopes.
• Emission from the industrial use of nuclear energy.
• Leakage from underground nuclear detonations.
• From shipboard reactors.
 Radioactive contaminate sea water will consumed by plants
during photosynthesis acts as a medium for radioactivity in
them. By this, radionuclide enter into the food chain of marine
water. This is the first underwater nuclear explosion conducted at a
• When men consume these radionuclide fishes, it will cause
cancers, leukemia, eye cataract, DNA breakage and carcinoma in depth of 27 meters in Bikini Atoll lagoon on July 25, 1946.
humans.
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DREDGE SPOILS:
Dredge spoils constitute the greatest pollutant input by
volume to the oceans. Spoils from dredging or mining
of offshore minerals are deposited within a few miles
of shore, where the potential impact is the greatest.
Often they also contain sewage or industrial waste
solids and solids from street runoff. Consequently, they
often contain objectionable amounts of hazardous
chemicals, pathogens, or oil and may exert a high
oxygen demand on the surrounding environment.
The damage which can be caused by dredging is two
fold:
1. That occurring at the dredging site, and
2. That occurring at the dredge spoils disposal area.
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PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF MARINE POLLUTION:

 Stabilization of the ecosystem

 Reutilization, recycling, renovation and recharge of the waste

 Removal of the pollutants

 To control the oil pollution, following methods are used

– Skimming
– By spreading a high density powder over the oil patch, it can be sunk to the bottom.
– Biodegradation
– Burning
– Using a suitable absorbing material.

 Heat can be removed from condenser cooling waters prior to their disposal into the marine wate
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PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF MARINE POLLUTION:

 Removal of phosphorus by electrolysis.

 Adopting appropriate methods to remove heavy metals from the marine water.

 Radioactive wastes can be removed or reduced by the ion-exchange techniques, precipitation of radio-nuclides.

 The impacts of deep sea mining can be minimize or reduced by using proper mining techniques.

 Creating awareness on marine pollution.

 Local communities near sea must protect sea.

 Management by government

 Incentives must be offered for conservation.

 Industrial units should be equipped with pollution control instruments.

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CONCLUSION
 Oceans cover the earth’s surface about 71% and play an important role in the chemical and biological balance
of the life on the earth.

 These are rich with marine resources like minerals, oil and marine life and the sea food supplies meet a
substantial food requirement of the world’s population.

 If the marine life affected by the pollution and if they carry pollutants in its biomass, the human population
may get the impact while consuming such resources. Hence it is necessary to aware about the marine
pollution, and to protect the marine water from the pollutants. So, necessary to prevent and control this
pollution.

 Let us save our oceans and the huge marine ecosystem.