Made to Degrade

Content: 

There’s a lot of plastic in the ocean. Much of it comes from the single-use items that we’re all familiar with, such as food wrappers and microbeads that inadvertently wind up in the sea. But a growing amount is coming from plastics that are actually made to be used in marine environments, such as instrumentation used for an emerging ocean “Internet of Things.”

“Oceanographic sensors are becoming cheaper and cheaper, and people don’t want to go back into the ocean and get them, so they’re basically disposable,” said UC Santa Barbara marine microbiologist Alyson Santoro(link is external), a faculty member in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (EEMB). These networking devices are used by the “blue economy” — a diverse group of maritime industries including tourism, defense, transportation, fisheries, education and power generation. By enabling rapid data-gathering and communications across the many sectors and communities that use the ocean, monitoring can be enhanced, resources managed more effectively and innovative solutions accelerated.

News Date: 

Tuesday, November 2, 2021