Much ado about Plastics
At the World Oceans Day this year and in fact over the past few years there has been greater emphasis on the plight of the oceans from plastics. Man-made debris has increased substantially; and of these, plastic is considered to be the most persistent and problematic. A report by the United Nation’s Environment Programme (2014) estimated that 10 to 20 million tonnes of plastic end up in the world’s oceans each year, costing approximately US$13 billion per year in environmental damage to marine ecosystems. This includes financial losses to fisheries and tourism and the expense of beach clean-ups. With such a widespread reliance on plastics, production is expected to double by 2025 but and what does it mean for the oceans, animals and people?
There are so many kinds of plastics used for packaging, building and construction and industrial and domestic purposes; much of it ending up as waste after a single use. Larger plastic objects – classified as meso, macro, mega plastics are visible and we find traces of these waste products bobbing up and down in the water bodies glistening in the sun. Smaller plastics debris or micro plastics are less than 5mm and not visible but can have more impact that can also be less obvious. Micro plastics can also be primary, meaning they are small originally or secondary, meaning they are degraded parts of larger plastics and they end up either in the sand or in the oceans. According to an IUCN study in 2017, around the world per year there are around 1.5 million tons of micro plastic that is released mainly from laundering synthetic textiles and from abrasion from tyres. The report concludes that micro plastics enter the water mainly through land-based activities through road runoff (66 per cent), wastewater treatment systems (25 per cent) and wind transfer (7 per cent). Micro plastics end up on the shores, in the coral reefs and mangroves where fish breed as well as farther out at sea – both on the surface and sinking down below. Studies have revealed that micro plastics are being ingested by the fish and other aquatic species as well as the birds.
In Sri Lanka, a recent study by NARA together with Norway’s Institute of Marine Research (IMR) shows that our territorial waters also contain micro plastic waste – mainly from packaging material, industrial applications and ironically enough from the fishing industry. A Global Environment Facility (GEF) Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme also shows that the waters from the Bay of Bengal to Japan have very high concentrations of micro plastics. This is an estimate but gives an idea of the patterns and should be studied further for transboundary policy decisions.
In the end, plastic waste creates negative impacts on our wellbeing – on our health and our livelihoods, especially tourism and fisheries. Some studies available from the global West have shown that just the costs of clean ups for tourism purposes are very high, while the fishing industry also has to incur losses due to damages to crafts and gear. Fears of contamination of seafood, especially molluscs and small fish, may also cause loss of livelihoods. An exploratory study in Indonesia shows that fishermen have been forced to modify their fishing practices such as avoiding certain areas and fishing methods, as a result of plastic debris in the oceans. In Sri Lanka much effort is spent by the tourism industry, other agencies and community groups to keep the Southern and Western coasts clean. Similar efforts are not spent on some of the other areas that are less commercially viable and visited, thus leaving some areas better managed than others.
Lovely streams like this are often polluted with plastics and other garbage
In terms of fisheries, there are 183,650 households that rely on fisheries in Sri Lanka. A sizeable number of our fishers rely on nearshore (41,826 fishing crafts) or coastal fishing (5,064 fishing crafts). Those using day boats, non-mechanized boats, or stilt fishing or even women who wade knee deep to collect certain types of molluscs fall into this category. In most parts of the country, the secondary sector of fish processing such as small scale dry fish making happens close to fisher households and these are dominated by women. All these groups often tend to be those that are less well-off and rely on this risky unstable income source. Close to the shores is also where pollution, including plastic debris is at its worst. Thus these livelihoods are those that could be the worst affected and the least able to handle the shock of further disruptions. But by how much or to what extent is not really known.
The irony is that, the fishing industry itself contributes to increasing plastic pollution. For example, in Sri Lanka, despite the availability of collection points and recycling systems for plastic waste at certain fishing harbours, there is dumping of plastic water bottles directly into the sea and harbour basins. Dumping of fish waste tied in plastic bags from secondary fisheries industries such as dry fish making also takes place. Dumping practices by industrial crafts is relatively unknown. Thus it is also necessary to change the fisheries industry and many others that use the ocean as a garbage dump.
The issue of plastics in the ocean brings out clearly the dilemma of siloed management and lack of a more circular thinking approach. The piecemeal management of fisheries, biodiversity, harbours, waste management, etc along with not thinking through in a “closed loop” manner on how to extend the use of the raw material and minimize the waste generation across sectors increases the leakages at many points. At the same time the lack of community responsibility to manage a common resource without checks and balances also leads to disregard for its common good. This has to be reversed with a more integrated approach where plastic or for that matter other materials are used in a way so as to maximise its use and prevent it becoming a waste product as far as possible across multiple parties.
(Karin Fernando and Gayathri Lokuge are Senior Researchers at CEPA while Shabnam Hilal is an intern).