1️⃣COBSEA strategies and action plans on marine litter
To address these regional and global threats and guide action in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), COBSEA participating countries adopted the Strategic Directions 2018-2022 and a revised Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter (RAP MALI) in 2019 to address marine pollution, with a focus on nutrients, sediments and wastewater; marine litter and microplastics.
The COBSEA RAP MALI consolidates, coordinates, and facilitates cooperation, and guides implementation of necessary environmental policies, strategies and measures for sustainable, integrated management of marine litter in the East Asian Seas region.
The RAP MALI comprises four main actions:
Action 1: Preventing and reducing marine litter from land-based sources
Action 2: Preventing and reducing marine litter from sea-based sources
Action 3: Monitoring and assessment of marine litter
Action 4: Activities supporting the implementation of the COBSEA RAP MALI
The COBSEA Secretariat coordinates closely with other Regional Seas programmes, the Global Partnership on Marine Litter (GPML) and the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (GPA) to support effective action in the East Asian Seas region to achieve SDG target 14.1: to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds and in particular from land-based activities.
2️⃣SEA circular: solving plastic pollution at source
Jointly with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, COBSEA is implementing the regional marine litter project SEA circular with support from the Government of Sweden. The project leverages COBSEA mechanisms such as the Working Group on Marine Litter and contributes to achieving the RAP MALI.
The project aims to reduce adverse impact of land-based plastic leakage into the marine environment, by ensuring that less plastic is wasted at source and management of the plastic value chain is improved in South East Asia. Considering waste management systems in the region remain largely inadequate to process increasing amounts of plastic waste, the project focuses on the lifecycle stages of (i) Production of plastic products, (ii) Plastic use, and (iii) Collection / sorting / recycling, to ensure that less plastic is wasted and strategically prevent plastic litter entering the ocean, across 4 Outputs:
- Promoting market-based solutions for less plastic wasted
- Strengthening the scientific evidence base for decision making
- Outreach and consumer awareness campaigns
- Regional networking and knowledge sharing
Project partners include COBSEA National Focal Agencies and relevant national and local government bodies; businesses, producers, retailers, and associations in the packaging, consumer and institutional products industry. To promote inclusive whole-of-value-chain planning at the national and regional level, project activities will actively engage civil society, consumers, informal waste workers, and communities most vulnerable to the impacts of marine litter.
3️⃣Multifacted response to marine pollution initiatives
Prevention
Technologies and/or methods that prevent marine litter from entering our oceans from rivers, including river mouths and discharge areas, or from WWT plants. Preventive actions and measures, for example, best practices and citizen perceptions, were not included.
Monitoring
Technologies and/or methods related to the spatial and temporal assessment of marine litter occurrence, persistence, accumulation, distribution and/or contamination of coastal and/or marine environments. Moreover, those that monitor the presence and abundance, accumulation and distribution of marine litter were also included. The function monitoring includes the subfunctions sampling, detection and modelling.
Sampling
Innovative, automated and cost-effective technologies and/or methods, or advancements of traditional methods (for example, nets and pumps) in terms of efficiency and/or time reduction, and research outputs for field sample collection to monitor marine litter in beaches and sea water (including sea surface, water column and sea bottom). Outputs that were not included were as follows: (1) traditional methods to collect marine litter (for example, nets, box corer and grabber), as well as marine litter samples found/ingested in marine biota; and (2) technologies/methods related to sorting, identification or characterization of plastic polymers.
Detection
Monitoring through supervised, semi-automated or automated workflows relying on remote sensing, imagery analysis, remotely operated and/or autonomous vehicles, including workflows and algorithms for imagery analysis, innovative methodologies and new technologies including models and AI methods implemented to detect and/or map marine litter. Query results on visual monitoring from ships or manual beach surveys were not included.
Modelling
Monitoring through modelling, including statistical models, increasingly supported by AI methods, particle tracking, predominantly 2D and 3D approaches, buoyancy processes that include plastic density variety, (dis)aggregation and biofouling processes, and budget models. Modelling solutions restricted to inland waters were not included.
Cleaning
Technologies and/or methods concerning the removal of marine litter, specifically in beaches, sea surface, water column, sea bottom in coastal and in open seas.
Multifunction
Technologies and/or methods that simultaneously combine at least two of the above functions.
4️⃣ Analyses of search, domain, target, actors and actions by category.
a, Search platform return for qualifying innovative solutions by category (colour), by ratio of innovative versus total (dark grey) and by total search corpus size (light grey). WoS, Web of Science. b, Ecosystems addressed from inland waters to the open ocean by category (colour) and by target depth (grey bars). c–g, Size and composition of marine litter by category (colour) and the fraction of plastic specifically addressed (grey) (c), initiator (d), funder (e), TRL (f) and timeline annotated with major policy actions and regulation (g). Cooperation and multiple denote any combination of at least two different initiators or funders. For b and c, note that duplication is possible.