Page 30 - Plastics News March 2019

FEATURES

Tackling Marine Litter

Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) to launch a programme to study marine litter, while the Centre to estab-
lish an international training centre for marine taxonomy

olid waste management has been a great challenge to a programme to study marine litter, MoES Secretary
Sthe developing nations as affluence and consumption M. Rajeevan has said. Addressing the gathering at the
are closely related. Increasing urbanization of coastal inauguration of the International Conference on Benthos
at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat)
earlier this month, he said oceans play a key part in our
lives but we still know far less about it than we do about
the solar system.“However, our marine environment
is under threat from climate change, over-fishing and
pollution,” he said.
Mr Rajeevan said that virtually no part of the ocean is
untouched by plastic. Of the over 300 million tonnes of
plastic produced every year, 8.8 million tonnes end up in
oceans. This makes up 80% of marine debris. According to
estimates by the United Nations, 15% of this floats on the
water surface, and another 15% is retained in the water
column. The rest of the debris — 70% — sinks onto the
ocean bed, said Dr. Rajeevan. So the Ministry hopes to
settlements as well as tourism development has resulted launch a programme to study marine litter and collaborate
in unprecedented production. of anthropogenic waste. with countries, including the United Kingdom and South
Any man-made object intentionally or unintentionally Africa, to do more research on this matter, he added. The
discarded, disposed of, or abandoned that enters the Centre will also establish an international training centre
marine environment is regarded as coastal debris. for marine taxonomy at the Centre for Marine Living
Plastic and other non-bio-degradable synthetic materials Resources and Ecology in Kochi, he said.
are the common groups of marine debris responsible According to a study conducted earlier by scientist from
for degradation of marine habitats and their biota.
Approximately 80% of debris originates onshore
and 20% from offshore sources (Allsopp et al.,
2009). These waste materials are becoming a
real menace and often find their way to the
ultimate sink- the sea and the suspended part
of which often wash ashore as litter all along
the coast and thosepart upon sinking will persist
in the sediments for many years. Apart from
the beach litter, increasing quantity of marine
debris including plastics and their impacts such
as ingestion by or entanglement of marine biota
pose serious challenge (Gregory, 2009; Sarah et
al., 2016).

The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is looking
into the issue of marine pollution and will launch Fig 1. Study locations and their marine litter status along Indian beaches during

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