Is there a connection between ocean pollution and damage to human health?

Human actions are leading to widespread damage to ocean ecosystems and threatening human being health, a fresh report suggests.

A global team of researchers has highlighted the widespread damage human actions have caused to the world’s oceans, and in turn, to human health.

The study, which appears in the history of Global Health, lays out a series of advice for alleviating these damaging effects.

Oceans and global health

The Earth’s oceans are crucial to sustaining life on earth. They take up a central role in adding oxygen into the atmosphere and absorbing skin tightening and, aiding to stabilize the effects of global heating.

They offer food to vast amounts of people, are central to the livelihoods of millions who live or work on or near them, and also have an important role in providing several essential medicines.

For persons who live near oceans - such as for example coastal communities, small-island communities, populations in the substantial Arctic, and peoples in elements of the global south - they are central to societal and cultural practices, traditions, and means of life.

However, the world’s oceans are under threat, generally from the actions of humans. And as the fitness of oceans deteriorates, thus too does individuals’ health, particularly those persons who live near to them.

Damage to oceans

The researchers behind today's study looked at length at current scientific evidence demonstrating the crucial role the world’s oceans play in planetary health. In addition they looked at the main element factors that are damaging the fitness of the oceans.

They discovered that human actions are central to the damage in a complex manner, whereby specific destructive actions exist in a relationship with other damaging actions.

A key example of that is human-influenced climate change, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear.

As global temperatures increase, the rate of sea-ice melting increases. This releases varieties of harmful algae and bacteria into previously uncontaminated waters.

Sea level rises and increasingly violent coastal storms threaten the well-appearing of coastal populations. Increasing degrees of atmospheric carbon dioxide produce the oceans acidic, which destroys the key foundations of ocean foodstuff chains.

In addition, the effects of climate change exacerbate another significant reason behind damage to the oceans’ health: pollution.

Ocean pollution

For Prof. Philip Landrigan, the corresponding writer of the analysis and the Director of the Global Pollution Observatory at Boston College, Massachusetts:

“Simply put: ocean pollution is a significant global problem, it really is growing, and it directly influences human health. People have heard about plastic pollution in the oceans, but that is only part of it. Research displays the oceans are staying fouled by a complex stew of toxins including mercury, pesticides, commercial chemicals, petroleum wastes, agricultural runoff, and created chemicals embedded in plastic.”

“These toxic materials in the ocean get into people, mainly by consuming contaminated seafood,” he adds.

Based on the researcher: “We all have been at risk, however the people many seriously affected are people in coastal fishing communities, persons on little island nations, indigenous populations, and persons in the great Arctic. The survival of these vulnerable populations is determined by the fitness of the seas.”

The analysis highlights that global heating and the associated increase in sea-surface temperatures incorporate with the polluted oceans, increasing the spread of bacteria that cause cholera and increasing the prevalence and intensity of harmful algal blooms.

However, despite their worrying report, the analysis authors suggest that the problem is changeable.

For Prof. Landrigan, “[t]he key thing to recognize about ocean pollution is normally that, like all forms of pollution, it might be prevented employing laws, policies, technology, and enforcement actions that target the most important pollution sources.”

“Many countries have applied these tools and also have successfully cleaned fouled harbors, rejuvenated estuaries, and restored coral reefs. The results have already been increased tourism, restored fisheries, better human health, and monetary growth. These benefits will last for centuries,” he notes.

The authors of the analysis make a series of recommendations to greatly help reverse the existing harm the oceans are undergoing. They are:

preventing mercury pollution by stopping the combustion of coal and managing the use of mercury in gold mining

considering a worldwide ban on single-use plastics

improving waste control to allow more recycling of plastics

reducing the discharge of pollutants in coastal waters and rivers right from intensive agriculture and sewerage facilities

creating Marine Protected Areas to reduce the trawling of fragile fish stocks and the knock-on damage to marine ecosystems

improving the monitoring of sea pollution

ensuring all countries possess marine pollution control programs

The authors also recommend transitioning to a circular economic model, leaving a model predicated on continuous growth and the consequent exhaustion of the planet’s resources.