National Consulation Workshop to form a coalition of coastal cities to combat marine litter

One of the corollaries of the problem of solid waste that the world is grappling with is that of marine litter — globally, plastics constitute about 60 per cent of the debris that reaches oceans. A 2020 report by Pew Trusts suggests 11 million metric tonne (MMT) per year of plastics enters oceans across the world, harming marine life and damaging habitats.

Once plastic enters the marine environment, it interacts with the flora and fauna and simultaneously degrades into miniscule fragments called micro-plastics due to environmental factors such as UV rays. Surveys by research agencies across the globe indicate that nearly 80 per cent of marine debris originates from land-based sources and travels via natural conveyor belts like drains and rivers into the ocean. The remaining 20 per cent comes from marine activities and equipment such as fishing nets, lines, ropes and abandoned vessels.

India has a coastline of 7,517 km, and its coastal regions are biologically rich marine ecosystems (such as the Gulf of Mannar in Tamil Nadu and the Sundarbans in West Bengal). The country has 66 coastal districts spread across nine states. It is estimated that 250 million people live within 50 km of the coast. In fact, some of the country’s most populous metro cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata are located on the coasts. Estimates suggest, about 16,000 metric tonnes of plastic is leaked into the marine ecosystem every day by the coastal settlements

Solid waste and its management has been one of CSE’s key areas of research and intervention for some years now. Considering the complexities and scale of the challenge of marine litter, CSE believes that it is time for creating a platform where coastal cities and institutions working in the domain of marine conservations can come together to exchange knowledge, information, policies, challenges and best practices.

The National Workshop being convened by CSE will help launch such a Coalition of Coastal Cities for combatting the scourge of marine litter. The Workshop is expected to bring together coastal city managers, administrators and other stakeholders from India on to a platform to understand and assess the scale of this problem, and evolve an action plan for countering it.