What to do yanni?

Addressing plastic pollution

Ongoing research over the last couple of decades has shown plastics to be ubiquitous within global marine environments, even those most remote at the poles. Over 75% of debris littering global shorelines have been reported as plastic. The numerous impacts of these – ingestion by marine life, attracting harmful chemicals onto their surfaces, novel transport pathways for pathogens, compounding within the food chain, and the potential transfer to humans has been discussed widely.

However, there are still massive research gaps concerning their presence in both marine and freshwater environments. Not only are they extremely difficult to quantify – especially microplastics – but the range of processes surrounding their degradation, transport, and effects globally is still under-researched.

As with all globally environmental problems, this lack of knowledge and data is what is preventing action and policy to reduce plastic pollution. The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) was adopted in 2008 (after several years of negotiation) with the design for EU Member States (MS) to reach Good Environmental Status (GES) by 2020. Addressing marine litter (of which plastics contribute a massive part) is just one of 11 Directives.

Marine litter, described as ‘any persistent, manufactures, or processed solid material discarded, disposed of, or abandoned in the marine or coastal environment’ (UNEP)  includes plastics. Proposed action by the MSFD in regard to this demand a harmonised mode of monitoring the presence of litter in the environment. Not only does this provide more information and research into the problem, but it also allows for continuous assessment of litter trends and as a result, insight into the effectiveness of the targets that MS are striving toward.

Academics are in wide agreement that litter already present in the ocean is too difficult to clean up, and that efforts toward that motion are almost a waste of time. I agree. Even the removal of a portion of microplastics would prove ineffective when considering the continued fragmentation of larger plastics over time. This problem truly needs to be tackled at the source. Different sources of plastic pollution have been discussed in my previous posts; loads of it comes from South East Asian countries (particularly China), but also through transfer from freshwater environments, particularly the overflow or ineffective filtering of waste water treatment plants. If legislation and policy targets these prime offending sources, then there is a good chance of an effective reduction of litter physically entering the environment.

However, this is where more research is needed. Oceanographic processes such as winds and currents can transport litter great distances between the source and eventual deposition site. Increasingly globalised markets make the sourcing of litter problematic. A solution is to understand what kinds of litter are in the ocean, and addressing ways to improve that. A study in Taiwan found that the most littered plastic debris was bottle caps at 33.58%, while bottles themselves comprised only around 2%. It was later suggested that the government could do more to educate its citizens that the caps were recyclable too in an effort to reduce their prevalence in the area.

The efforts of using citizen-scientists as a man-power resource to monitor and quantify litter has been suggested by a number of academics, who also tested the reliability of their results when compared with professional surveyors. Even schoolchildren proved effective at collecting data on litter prevalence in a Chilean study, and the use of citizens has been regarded by UNEP as an ‘essential component of sustainability’. Not only can they provide reliable data globally, but their participation increased public awareness and responsibility toward the environment, with the possibility of campaigning for local solutions. The education of citizens, and attempts to understand the social behaviours that lead to individuals littering is also a large issue that needs to be addressed.

The MSFD outlines that each MS is required to set their own national circumstances depending on their circumstance. However, given the prevalence of litter already dispersed in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater environments, within the water column, as well as within marine sediments, it has been agreed that 0% litter is not a reasonable goal. So while we can hope for increased efforts to monitor and understand the processes acting on marine litter and plastics, and pray for actions that effectively combat the release of litter into the environment from the source, there will forever more be traces of litter in our oceans.