Given our past resource consumption patterns, it comes as no surprise that there are growing concerns about waste accumulation and resource depletion. Reckless overfishing practices have reduced biodiversity, depleted vital resources, and significantly degraded marine ecosystems. The productivity of marine ecosystems cannot match the rapidly increasing food demand, making resources scarce and distributed evermore unequally. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that approximately 3 billion people around the world depend on seafood as their primary source of protein. Therefore, we are urgently in need of a sustainable strategy that will enable us to manage our waste and enhance marine ecosystem productivity. This will require both hard and soft strategies. Hard strategies include technologies that are employed to enhance ecosystems, while soft strategies require a change of social perceptions.
Before our waste can be properly managed, society must change its perception of resource consumption. Greater emphasis should be placed on recycling and reusing the resources that we currently have at our disposal, rather than extracting or exploiting more resources. For example, artificial marine reefs qualify as appropriate strategies to manage our waste and enhance ecosystem productivity. Artificial reefs, just as the title implies, are man-made structures placed in marine ecosystems, which are used to simulate the function of natural reefs. Artificial reefs are very versatile and can be created from either new or recycled materials; the best reefs are created from large materials or structures that have multiple nooks and crannies, such as subway cars, tanks, tugboats, concrete domes, and freighters.
In 2001, New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) decided to retire the 1960s “RedBird” subway car fleet, which consisted of nearly 1,500 subway cars. In an attempt to avoid waste accumulation in junkyards, the MTA donated a portion of the fleet to museums, while the majority of subway cars were given to states along the East coast, to be used as artificial reefs; New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia have used about 1,000 subway cars for their respective artificial reef programs. These programs have boasted widespread success for both the reuse of a large quantity of materials and the enhancement of marine ecosystems. Subway cars proved to be excellent artificial reefs. Using only 50 subway cars allows us to generate about 200,000 ft3 of reef habitat, which is tremendous as compared to other traditional reef materials: 200 concrete domes provide 12,500 ft3 of habitat; 30 military tanks provide 35,000 ft3 of habitat; a standard-sized tugboat provides 63,000 ft3 of habitat; a freighter provides about 132,000 ft3 of habitat (Martore, 2014).
Robert Martore’s findings indicate that subway cars are a viable and highly successful option for artificial reefs. Artificial reefs allow us to repurpose obsolete materials that would have otherwise accumulated in landfills. Additionally, they have been shown to increase the fish stock because they provide protection for juvenile fish, which in turn increases the likelihood that those fish will reach adulthood and spawn. Furthermore, artificial reefs in South Carolina have successfully been employed to sustain fisheries and preserve marine biodiversity in marine protected areas. Coupled with sustainable fishing practices, artificial reefs could increase the overall productivity of marine ecosystems, as well as provide an innovative outlet to manage the disposal of bulky obsolete materials.
This post was written by a student enrolled in the Capstone Seminar course in the undergraduate program in public policy at Hunter College. Any opinions expressed here are solely those of the student.