Marine plastic pollution
Context:
- The Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) Annual Report on Implementing the Plastic Garbage Rules, 2016 is released.
- It found that total plastic waste generated in 2018-19 was 3,360,043 tonnes per year (roughly 9,200 tonnes per day).
- Plastic waste contributes about 5-6 per cent of total solid waste generated in India.
- Only nine per cent of all plastic waste has ever been recycled. Approximately 12 per cent has been burnt, while the remaining 79 per cent has accumulated in landfills.
Problem of marine plastic pollution can be tackled as follows:
- Designing a product: Identifying plastic items that can be replaced with non-plastic, recyclable, or biodegradable materials is the first step. Find alternatives to single-use plastics and reusable design goods by working with product designers.
- Pricing: Plastics are inexpensive because they are made with substantially subsidised oil. Price structures that reflect the adverse impacts of plastic consumption and promote alternative materials or reused and recycled plastics are necessary.
- Technologies and Innovation: Developing tools and technology to assist governments and organisations in measuring and monitoring plastic garbage in cities.
- ‘Closing the loop’ project of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific assists cities in developing more inventive policy solutions to tackle the problem. A similar approach can be adopted in India.
- Promoting a plastic-free workplace: All catering operations should be prohibited from using single-use plastics. All single-use goods can be replaced with reusable items or more sustainable single-use alternatives.
- Producer responsibility: Extended responsibility can be applied in the retail (packaging) sector, where producers are responsible for collecting and recycling products that they launch into the market.
- Municipal and community actions: Beach and river clean-ups, public awareness campaigns explaining how people’s actions contribute to marine plastic pollution (or how they may solve it) and disposable plastic bag bans and levies.
- Multi-stakeholder collaboration: Government ministries at the national and local levels must collaborate in the development, implementation and oversight of policies, which includes participation from industrial firms, non-governmental organisations and volunteer organisations.
Conclusion:
- Solving the problem of marine plastic involves a change in production and consumption habits, which would help meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The central UN SDGs that deal with marine plastics are SDG 12 and SDG 14.
- Identifying hotspots for plastic leakage can assist governments in developing effective policies that address the plastic problem directly.
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