Addressing Marine Pollution

The first Partnership Dialogue to be discussed at the UN Ocean Conference in New York in June 2017, was aimed at addressing marine pollution. This complex global issue that can have devastating consequences for our environment and wildlife. Solving it requires several coordinated actions across the world.

What do we know so far?

The Concept Paper on Partnership dialogue 1: Addressing marine pollution provided a useful overview of the current evidence and understanding of the situation of litter in our oceans.

• Sources – Land-based sources account for approximately 80 per cent of marine pollution globally. This pollution emanates from a range of sources, including agricultural run-off, untreated sewage and wastewater, oils, nutrients, sediments, and marine debris.[1]
   
• Contributing factors –  Currently, at least 2 billion people do not have access to regular waste collection, and a large portion of the uncollected waste ends up in waterways and the ocean, becoming marine debris in the process.
   
• Global problem – This issue is one that we need coordinated global action on to prevent litter entering waterways and travelling to the ocean, where it is then carried across the globe by the tides.

Solutions? 

All sorts of items end up in our water ways – check out the Cabinet of Curiosities  (items pulled out the River Thames) and you’ll see the bizarre variety of objects. What makes it into our waterways, can then travel further and reach the oceans. It’s important that we look at how items end up in the waterways to begin with.

Waste management

Waste management is an important part of prevention. The UN Concept Paper noted this as one question to address: What can be done to strengthen waste management practices, in order to reduce marine debris and pollution? What are sustainable financial mechanisms for the development and maintenance of sound waste management practices and infrastructure?

This is a positive contribution to the issue as it recognises the importance of stopping all types of litter at the source of pollution. It is generally accepted that largest source of leakage of plastic items into the oceans is from a small number of Asian and Pacific rim countries that account for over 80% of ocean waste - these include China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria and Bangladesh.[2] Leakage from The United States and Europe is only thought to account for 2% of global leakage, see Figure 3.[3] To this end, several Asian nations (China, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines) made promises around reducing marine pollution[4] which is a very positive step in the right direction. For example, Indonesia has committed to structuring a land based management of waste over a four year period with up to 1 billion USD and open to collaboration from strategic partners. Denmark have also committed financial support to Indonesia to reduce debris in their water and recognise the importance of waste management. 

Behaviour change – littering

Even in countries where we are lucky enough to have well developed waste infrastructure, some rubbish still escapes into the natural environment. We face our own unique challenges – consuming on the go, living in transient cities with fast paced lifestyles. This can lead to a lack of care with disposing of our rubbish and we need to do our bit too.

For this reason the BPF has been supporting a behaviour change campaign run by Hubbub on the River Thames with the view of creating a replicable model for other waterways. The campaign – For Fishes Sake looks at developing a sense of community around our natural environment, highlighting the important role of the river and helping people to understand that litter on the ground can make its way into the ocean. There are three main things we can all do to help:

1. Use the bin - not the gutter, not the river, not the pavement 
2. If you see some litter and you’re near a bin – pick it up
3. If the bin is full, find another one or take your litter home

To find out more about other initiatives taking place around the world, please visit: www.marinelittersolutions.com

What a waste…

Plastic, along with all types of rubbish, has absolutely no place in our oceans, riverways, parks or pavements. Plus, it’s a valuable resource that we can use to make new products. Don’t discard your plastic, we need it – we can make new products with it, from food packaging to benches, from toys to kerbsides, from windows to planes.

 If no recycling options are available, it can even be turned into electricity to power homes or into fuel to be used again. At the end of the day, this is a socioeconomic issue, it’s about infrastructure, understanding and behaviour change to ensure we continue benefiting from resources, rather than discarding them and ensure our environment is protected.