Our modelling found that the US could lose US$838m in fisheries revenue annually should dead zones worsen in the Gulf.
This is one small case study in an area that is relatively well studied. Extrapolate this figure to the entire ocean, and it is easy to see how devastating the economic cost of marine chemical pollution could be.
At Back to Blue, our message is clear: there is more to marine pollution than plastic.
The recent UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon has helped to galvanise momentum towards solving the plastic pollution crisis. Yet pollution in the broader sense—chemicals, agricultural runoff and urban wastewater—barely rated a mention.
Our goal: putting marine pollution, not just plastic, front and centre at the next UN Ocean Conference in five years’ time. We need to make the invisible visible.