ABSTRACT
Use of the oceans for disposal of non-toxic wastes has been limited by the legal and regulatory assumptions that all reductions of waste loads to the oceans are beneficial and should be enforced without regard to nutrient flow, or available alternatives. Growing ecological, economic and public health problems associated with land disposal require reevaluation of those basic assumptions. However, reversal of the policy without concomitant careful restructuring of criteria could result in serious impacts on the nearshore environment. Fish processing produces biodegradable, presumably non-toxic wastes. Methods for management of such wastes have not been adequately developed, in part because traditional sanitation plant measurements have been considered adequate and the regulatory stance effectively inhibited research on methodologies. The present project includes developing and proposing techniques to evaluate ocean disposal of non-toxic fish processing wastes more effectively. Results of the field investigation to date are discussed herein.
