Do you know where your litter is?

A great poster that makes us think about the litter we left behind on the shore!

More about the poster on the NAMEPA website.

This poster is part of the efforts of the North American Marine Environment Protection Association (NAMEPA). They encourage you to use the poster, you can even add your own logo to it.


More about the poster and how to get the high resolution pdf.

NAMEPA had also put together a calendar of children's drawings about our oceans and what we need to do to protect them.

From the NAMEPA website.

It would be awesome to do something similar in Singapore. We already have great drawings by kids about Chek Jawa from the Naked Hermit Crab walks there!

NAMEPA is a maritime industry-led initiative which operates as a voluntary, non-profit and non-governmental organization committed to preserving the marine environment through educating seafarers, port communities and students about the need, and strategies, for protecting this important global resource.

I got to know about NAMEPA from the MarineDebris Digest, a mailing list focusing on efforts to deal with marine debris.

Lost crab pots

In another post from the mailing list, I learnt about an effort to employ watermen to locate and remove lost or abandoned blue crab pots in Chesapeake Bay, USA. Over the last three winters, they removed over 28,000 pots which contained over 27,000 animals! About 20% of deployed pots are lost each year. Unless removed, lost pots, particularly vinyl-coated pots, accumulate and can continue to fish for several years.

The programme also worked with watermen to test a solution to eliminate bycatch in lost pots – a panel for installation in pots made from a fully biodegradable (in the marine environment) plant-based polymer that dissolves after one season and is inexpensive. This eliminates the problems associated with mechanisms that rely on the degradation of attachment devices (wire, rings, twine) that become encrusted and fail to detach or open.

This information was shared by Dr. Kirk J. Havens, Director, Coastal Watersheds Program, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, more information on their website.

In Singapore, we face similar problems with marine debris, abandoned fish nets and more. The Marine Debris mailing list is a great place to get new ideas to deal with these issues!