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|  For hundreds of years, the oceans and seas have been used as a place to dispose of wastes resulting from human activity. Throughout most of that time, the ability of the oceans to cope was taken for granted. The sea was seen as a place for getting rid of rubbish as the sludge resulting from the dredging of ports and rivers, sewage treatment operations, tailings left over from mining, residues from the chemical industry, ash from power stations, and other unrecycled wastes. In the early 1970s for example, many millions tonnes of waste were being dumped into the oceans each year, and there seemed to be very few controls over how it was carried out. In many countries, concern began to grow about the wisdom of using the sea as an uncontrolled rubbish dump. It was widely felt that something should be done not only to assess the problem but also to control it - and it had to be done at an international level. | | | | In 1971, preparations were under way for the world's first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which was held in Stockholm in 1972. Marine pollution featured high on the agenda and the Inter-Governmental Working Group on Marine Pollution held its first meeting in London in June 1971. At that meeting it recommended that an international agreement regulating the world-wide dumping at sea of wastes transported from land should be prepared. Further meetings were held in Ottawa, Reykjavik and London and draft texts were prepared for consideration at Stockholm. | | | | The 1972 Stockholm Conference recommended that Governments ensure that "ocean dumping by their nationals anywhere, or by any person in areas under their jurisdiction, is controlled and the Governments continue to work towards the completion of and bringing into force as soon as possible of an over-all instrument for the control of ocean dumping...".
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 | | | | | Websites  GESAMP Marine Environment. Programmes and Initiatives. GloBallast. London Convention 1...
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