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Impacts on health – and widespread pollution – from land disposal

The two main issues with regard to disposal of waste from land are the impacts on human health and pollution found almost everywhere at the sea coast. Some of this pollution can be traced back to direct causes. Much is "non-point source" pollution, resulting from a range of land-based activities such as agriculture, industry, tourism and other leisure activities.

The UN's marine scientists speak of a global crisis produced by bathing in sewage-contaminated waters and eating sewage-polluted shellfish. The burden on health, in terms of lost active years of life, is equivalent to that from chest and lung diseases and from leprosy and diptheria combined, costing society billions of dollars each year.

Pollution ranges across the "dirty dozen" of organic pollutants such as dioxins, litter – "a more and more serious problem" – hydrocarbons such as oil, heavy metals, and radioactive substances – with nutrients that overfertilize our waters overshadowing most of the others in their recorded effects and direct importance for living resources. The eutrophication (biological death) of estuaries and coastal waters and algae blooms often known as red tides with their threat of paralytic diseases are just the most dramatic effects attributed to nutrient pollution, though a direct link with human activities has yet to be demonstrated.