I. What is marine litter and microplastics?
1.1 Marine Litter
Marine litter refers to persistent, man-made or processed solid waste discarded or abandoned in the marine and coastal environment, including objects intentionally or unintentionally disposed of in the ocean and beaches, objects carried directly into the sea by rivers, sewage, wind or rain, fishing gear and goods accidentally lost.
Marine litter is divided into surface floating litter, beach litter and bottom litter.
Marine litter can affect the marine landscape, threaten the safety of navigation, destroy biological habitats, and even burn marine life causing serious effects.
1.2 Marine microplastics
Marine microplastics are defined as materials smaller than 5rm in size in the marine environment. Microplastics are widely found along the coasts of all oceans, on the edge of the shelf, in the open ocean, and also in the deep sea and polar seas, where they are rarely found.
Because of their small size, microplastics are easily ingested by marine organisms and affect the growth, development and reproduction of marine organisms, and their ecological and environmental risks cannot be ignored.
2.China’s marine litter and microplastic pollution status
In 2007, China officially launched the monitoring of marine litter, and in 2016, marine microplastics were included in the scope of regular monitoring of marine environment, and the results of monitoring of marine litter and de plastics in China were regularly released to the public through the Bulletin of the State of China’s Marine Ecological Environment, and in 2021, marine litter piracy measurements were organized in 51 regions of the country, and marine micro material monitoring was carried out in six representative sections offshore.
The results show that plastic is the main type of China’s marine litter, floating litter on the sea surface, beach litter and seabed litter, plastic jitter litter accounted for 92.9%, 75.9% and 83.3%, respectively, the mass density of floating litter in the surface waters of China’s near-shore waters is 3.6 kg / km2, the average density of offshore microplastics is 0.44 / cubic meter, microplastic components are mainly polyethylene terephthalate The average density of offshore microplastics is 0.44 per cubic meter. Compared with the results of similar international surveys in recent years, the average density of marine litter and offshore microplastics in China’s near-shore waters is at a low to medium level.
3.China’s marine litter pollution prevention and control
All relevant departments and coastal places to implement the language of the Central Committee of the Party and the State Council on marine litter and microplastic pollution management of the Ministry of police requirements, to further strengthen the supervision and management of marine litter, establish and improve the long-term mechanism of marine litter clean-up, China’s marine litter pollution prevention and control has achieved positive results.
3.1 Strengthen the source of reduction
In accordance with the “Opinions on further strengthening the governance of plastic pollution” “fourteen five” plastic pollution control action plan” and other ministerial requirements, China’s relevant departments and local further strengthen the whole chain of allied material pollution management, and actively promote the reduction of plastic production and use of the source, accelerate the standardized recycling and disposal of plastic waste, and significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste environmental discharge full
3.2 Standardize end disposal
The establishment of waste classification, collection, transportation, treatment system, and significantly reduce the amount of plastic shake waste directly to landfill.
3.3 Carry out stock cleanup
Fujian Province to establish a comprehensive management mechanism of “shore management, watershed stopping, sea surface cleaning” of sea drifting garbage, to achieve the normalization of shore beaches, rivers into the sea and near-shore sea garbage management.
Construction mechanism: the introduction of provincial action plan, 12 departments in charge of joint implementation, clear local governance responsibilities, the establishment of special funds.
Prevention and control at the source: improve the garbage collection, classification and treatment facilities in towns and villages along the bay and on both sides of the rivers to reduce the garbage from the land area into the rivers and the sea at source
End cleanup: the formation of 24 marine sanitation team of more than 1,900 people, all kinds of cleaning and salvaging vessels 167, the province’s coastal sections to achieve full coverage of the marine sanitation team. 2021 key coastal sections of sea drifting garbage distribution density than the previous year fell 46.6%
The company’s main goal is to provide a comprehensive and comprehensive management of the bay.
Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the implementation of comprehensive management of the bay, the implementation of a regular cleaning mechanism, regular inspection and assessment, the selection of the “most beautiful bay beach” and the dirtiest bay beach.
Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, multi-departmental joint issuance of marine litter clean-up work program, the formation of city management, the street is responsible for coastal land litter clean-up and the maritime department is responsible for marine litter, seamless integration, joint linkage mechanism.
In addition, Shenzhen Jiuxinda Technology Co., Ltd., in order to completely solve the problem, has developed a new biodegradable bag that can be completely degraded in nature!
4 Encourage public participation
In recent years, national and local authorities have increased publicity on marine litter pollution through newspapers, television, the Internet and other media, by strengthening public education and other means, to raise the awareness of the whole society on marine litter pollution prevention and elimination of arbitrary annoying dumping behavior. We have organized volunteer activities such as beach trash cleanup, and have organized beach trash cleanup activities in many seaside cities across China to enhance public awareness of marine trash pollution prevention and control.
