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Priority chemical pollutionnon toxic environment

GoesFoundation.comGLOBAL OCEANIC ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEY

At GOES Foundation, we are marine biologists, 30 years field experience

Life support systems for public aquaria and marine mammals

Environmental projects and effluent treatment systems in India and China we know about environmental pollution and what is takes to destroy and ecosystem

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Billions of tonnes of Industrial waste enter rivers every year

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from many different sources

National Geographic

Barrow, Alaska

Haina, Dominican Republic. Photo Source: Eduardo Munoz

Air pollution from domestic and industrial sources

Freshwater pollution……Un-sustainable Economies

Economies of countries including India, China are un-sustainable unless they prevent aquatic environmental pollution• 90% of surface water is polluted with priority chemicals• 75% of all aquifer water is grossly contaminated• All freshwater pollution eventually ends up in the oceans

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China textile town

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It all eventually ends up in the oceans

Mass of garbage is 6 times the mass of plankton in garbage patches

46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year

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Priority chemicals impact on microscopic plankton (primary productivity)

Priority Chemicals, what are they?Chemicals or substances that pose an unreasonable risk to; • Public health, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, neurological,

endocrine disrupters and auto-immune disorders• Environment, water and food security, we depend upon the marine

ecosystem, if we loose it, the terrestrial system will fail

• 90% of all cancers are now known to be caused by environmental factors• 800 billion year on treating neurological problems• 200,000 tonnes of priority substances are manufactured in Europe every year.

Source of Priority chemicals

domestic sources

Europe and North America

Industrial pollution

S. America, Africa and Asia

Sun Block oxybenzone Kills corals at 0.06 ug/l

May be primary reason for coral bleaching. Environmental Contamination and Toxicology ISSN: 1432-0703 (electronic version) Journal no. 244

Fire retardant

Carpets, furniture, fabrics

PBDE 60 to 600 ug/l found in blood of children and marine mammals

Persistent, bio-accumulated endocrine disrupter, almost as dangerous as PCBs

Tooth paste Triclosan Endocrine disrupter, skin irritation, antibiotic resistance

Shampoo Triethanolamine

Buffering agent Carcinogenic

Plastic micro particles

Cosmetics, clothing and industrials

TBT, DBT, PFAS, Bisphenol

Combination of plastic and priority chemicals. Injects chemicals into marine life

Highly toxic, endocrine disrupter, neurological impact, allergic sensitization

Domestic

Transformers and capacitors.

PCBs No safe level

Banned for many applications, but still is use. Millions of tonnes manufactured, only 1% has reached the oceans. Extremely toxic.http://www.wsn.org/

Flame retardant, released into the oceans in huge amounts in Asia

PBDE No safe level

Some classes have been banned. Persistent, bio-accumulated endocrine disrupter, almost as dangerous as PCBs

Anti-fouling paint, plasticizer in plastic

Organic tineTBT, DBT

No safe level

Bio-accumulated Carcinogenic, extremely toxic. 1000 tonnes cold kill all life in the oceans. We manufacture circa 30,000 tonnes/year. http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/factsheet_organotins_food.pdf

Many industrial and chemical products

Mercury forming methly mercury

No safe level

Highly toxic, endocrine disrupter, neurological impact, allergic sensitization

Industrial

Every fish, shrimp and living organism in the oceans contain priority chemicals

Ref MARBEF1. PCB concentration in the North sea, 8.8 ng/l, concentration in biomass 600 to 1200 ng/g

(dry weight)2. PCB concentration in Antarctic 1.2 ng/l, concentration in biomass is the same as North Sea

600 to 1200 ng/g (dry weight)3. The above demonstrates that hydrophobic particles, concentrate priority substances.

PCBs and organochlorine pesticides in phytoplankton and zooplankton in the Indian sector of the Southern oceanJoiris, C.R.; Overloop, W. (1991). PCBs and organochlorine pesticides in phytoplankton and zooplankton in the Indian sector of the Southern ocean. Antarctic Science 3: 371-377 18

Priority chemical concentrations

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Southern Ocean and Human health

Southern Ocean“shark have levels mercury & PCB’s 10 times higher than safety levels recommended by the Foods Standards Authority of Australia and New Zealand”

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Bib and whiting had the highest concentrations of PCBs: 810 - 3200 ng/g

UK, National Health Service“Pregnant women should not eat more than two oily fish per week from the North Sea because of pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)”

Oily fish are meant to be healthy ?

 Voorspoels, S.; Covaci, A.; Maervoet, J.; De Meester, I.; Schepens, P. (2004). Levels and profiles of PCBs and OCPs in marine benthic species from the Belgian North Sea and the Western Scheldt Estuary. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 49(5-6): 393-404

Farmed salmon, upper limit by EPA 48 ug/kg, current levels range from 2 to 20 ug/Kg.

Contaminant levels in Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in the 13-year period from 1999 to 2011Ole Jakob Nøstbakkena, , , doi:10.1016/j.envint.2014.10.008

• Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 18573 (2016)• doi:10.1038/srep18573

41.0 mg/kg lipid PCB is the toxicity threshold published for marine mammals. The average concentration is lipid of European Orca is over >200mg/kg

This orca was found washed up on the British coast in 2001. ©CSIP-ZSL

PBDE is almost as toxic as PCBs, mammals concentrate toxin in fat tissue as well as milk

706 ng/g of PBDE endocrine disrupterEnviron. Sci. Technol., 2004, 38 (16), pp 4293–4299DOI: 10.1021/es0495011

PCBs in the Blubber Beached Sperm whales up to 5000 ng/g dry weight

Daphnis De Pooter (2013): PCB and heavy metals in beached sperm whales. Available from http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/PCB_and_heavy_metals_in_beached_sperm_whales The Coastal Wiki is hosted and developed by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)

PBDE levels as high as 590 ppb have been measured in the breast milk of Canadian women

Published by the Environmental Working Grouphttps://groups.google.com/group/goes-foundation/attach/7b3001c818044/MothersMilk.pdf?part=0.1&authuser=0

The implications of priority substances on Marine Biodiversity

95% of all life in the oceans are microscopic plankton responsible for up to 80% of all our Oxygen

30% of CO2 fixation. Atmospheric oxygen levels are declining, and CO2 is increasing

Dalhousie University Nova ScotiaPrimary productivity has dropped by 40% since the 1950s. Nature 466, 591–596 (29 July 2010) doi:10.1038/nature09268

NASA from satellite imagery shows that primary productivity is dropping by 1% every year.

The drop in productivity is not due to increasing temperature.Priority chemical product started in the early 1950s, is there a Connection with the drop in productivity?

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pH and ocean acidificationCO2 dissolves into the water and drops the pH

At current rates in 25 to 40 years, oceanic pH will drop from pH8.06 to pH7.95, at which point there may be a cascade destabilization of the marine ecosystem.

The ability of the marine ecosystem to sequester CO2 will decline in proportion to the productivity

Anthropogenic CO2 emission account for up to 3.75% of the total CO2 going into the atmosphere

each year. (from IPCC)

Data from IPCC

pH at 2015

pH at 2050

Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 8.5combines assumptions about high population and relatively slow income growth with modest rates of technological change and energy intensity improvements

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Consequences

When the pH reaches 7.95 in 25 to 40 years, the consequences could be;

• No more marine teleost fish• No fish then no dolphins, whales, seals,

penguins, seabirds or polar bears• Food supply for 1.5 billion people under

threat• Coccolithophores will be replaced by

diatoms, fixation of atmospheric CO2 drops by at least 50% climate change accelerates

For discussion?

If priority chemicals are implicated in reducing primary productivity, allowing CO2 to increase, could we reverse the trend?

Graph from MIT

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Opportunities… for a non toxic environment

• Communicate the problem• Development of new domestic

products, cosmetics, cleaning agents, fire retardants

• Pharmaceuticals, domestic treatment systems

• Technology to recycle waste, eg PCs, mobile phones

• Prevention of pollution, disposal stratigies & catchment area management

• Water treatment technology to remove the chemicals from drinking water and wastewater.

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Reduction of oceanic pollution would allow the marine ecosystem a chance to recover…

and this could happen very quickly…

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Trees take over 100 years to remove CO2 carbon from the atmosphere

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Marine Bacteria take a few minutes

If we remove the brakes on marine productivity by preventing pollution, the marine ecosystem could

recover very quickly.

The prevention of priority chemicals getting into the air and water, may be our best hope to protect not only the

oceans but the terrestrial ecosystem.but

we need to take action now we may only have 25 years to provide a fix.

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You can’t control water you don’t measure.

GOES, Global Oceanic Environmental Survey

• Collect information• Raise awareness of the issues• Provide possible solutions

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GoesFoundation.comGLOBAL OCEANIC ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEY

non toxic environment