Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans has reached unprecedented levels over the past 15 years
Annual plastic flows into the ocean can be cut by about 80 per cent in the next 20 years by applying existing solutions and technologies. Photo: iStock. Oceans across the world are polluted by a growing plastic smog composed primarily of microplastics, according to a new study.
An estimated 171 trillion plastic particles, weighing 2.3 million tonnes, were afloat in the world’s oceans in 2019, said the study published in Plos One on March 8, 2023.
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Plastic concentration in the ocean surface layer varied over time, dramatically increasing soon after the turn of the century. A rapid rise in the abundance of ocean plastic since 2005 was noticed. This observed acceleration of plastic densities in the world’s oceans, also reported from beaches around the globe, calls for urgent policy interventions at the international level.
Researchers led by Marcus Eriksen, Gyres Institute, California, used previously published and new data on floating ocean plastics from 11,777 stations to create a global time series. They estimated the average counts and mass of small plastics in the ocean surface layer from 1979 to 2019.
“Today’s global abundance is estimated at approximately 82-358 trillion plastic particles weighing 1.1-4.9 million tonnes,” the study said.
The globalisation of raw plastic materials speeded up at the turn of the century, leading to rapid increases in import, export, domestic production of plastic products and packaging as well as the amount of plastic waste generated.
As a result, the International Plastic Resin Trade Network became increasingly interconnected under the combined effect of the involvement of more participating countries, according to a 2020 paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. This resulted in increased involvement of more participating countries, the closeness of trade links and an increase in trade volume, which grew by 0.4-fold, 7.7-fold and 14.9-fold, respectively.
Also read: Plastic pollution in aquatic systems may triple by 2040: UNEP
Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are the largest contributors to plastic leakage on the continent. Algeria and Morocco joined the list of top 20 coastal countries contributing to marine plastic pollution, said a 2022 report by World Wide Fund for Nature.
India is not far from the growing burden of the marine debris crisis. Some 15,343 tonnes of waste dumped in the south Asian seas daily are generated from 60 major Indian cities, according to UNEP.
In 1988, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships added Annex V, which established legally-binding agreements among 154 countries to end the discharge of plastics from naval, fishing and shipping fleets.
These interventions were followed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 and the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Plastic by Dumping of Wastes and other Matter in 1972.
Also read: Plastic waste woes: A primer on India’s marine litter problem
In 1991, the Plastic Industry Trade Association launched ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ with the goal of zero loss of plastic pellets, powders and flakes from factories with decreasing pellet ingestion in biota observed. However, these and others were voluntary agreements.
Cost-effective solutions to manage plastic waste differ considerably across countries. Various solutions to the plastic pollution problem have been proposed at local, national, and regional levels.
Despite these efforts, “a global evidence-based strategy that includes practical and measurable interventions aimed at reducing plastic pollution does not yet exist,” said a paper published in Science on July 23, 2020.
On March 2, 2022, heads of state, ministers of environment and other representatives from UN member states adopted a resolution to end plastic pollution and forge an international legally binding agreement by 2024. The resolution looked at the full lifecycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal.
Breaking the plastic wave, a 2020 report by Pew said we can cut annual plastic flows into the ocean by about 80 per cent in the next 20 years by applying existing solutions and technologies. There is no single solution to achieve this goal; rather, the plastic wave can be broken by taking immediate, ambitious and concerted actions.
Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans has reached unprecedented levels over the past 15 years. A significant increase has been observed in the presence of oceanic microplastics after 2005.
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