Marine Litter Vital Graphics

RESPONSES

East Asian Seas, Eastern Africa , South Asian Seas, ROPME Sea Area, Mediterranean , North-East Pacific, North-West Pacific , Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, South-East Pacific, Pacific, and Western Africa . The four other Regional Seas programmes cover the Antarctic, Arctic, Baltic Sea and North-East Atlantic regions. Most of these programmes function through an Action Plan, underpinned in most cases by a regional sea convention and its associated protocols, or by other legal frameworks on different aspects of marine environmental protection. The Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans are instrumental in supporting the implementation of the GPA at regional levels and have developed, or are in the process of developing, regional sea action plans on marine litter. The regional plans take into account the environmental, social and economic situation of each regional sea and they vary in the detail and extent of actions recommended to the states (UNEP, 2016a). While, for example, in the Mediterranean the strategic framework includes legally binding measures, the regional action plans for the Baltic and North Atlantic are built around a set of fundamental principles and, similar to the G7 Action Plan, a series of regional and national actions to address land-based and sea-based sources, priority removal actions and priority actions on education, research and outreach. Otherwise in the Pacific marine debris has been identified as a priority area in the broader Pacific Regional Waste and Pollution Management Strategy 2015–2016. Regional and national policies The European Union, through its member states, has become a leading voice for defining marine environmental policy in the European Seas (Baltic, Black Sea, Mediterranean and North Atlantic). Through the regional seas, its influence reaches beyond the borders of the European Union and the waters of its member states. It has adopted a number of measures on waste management, packaging and environmental protection that are relevant to the reduction of marine plastic debris and are applicable to the 28 member states of the EU. Some of the regulations are devised within the EU, such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, an integral policy instrument for the protection of the marine environment for the European Community. The Directive, adopted in 2008, aims at achieving Good Environmental Status by 2020 through 11 areas, one of which is devoted to marine litter, assessed through a series of indicators and targets. The EU has also developed other instruments relevant to marine litter, such as the EU Port Reception Facility Directive in force since 2002, aimed at transposing MARPOL 73/78, and land-based waste management initiatives such as the Packaging Waste Directive, the Waste Framework Directive, the Landfill Directive and the Urban Waste Water Directive

(Chen, 2015). More specifically, the European Strategy on Plastic Waste in the Environment looked at aspects of plastic production, use, waste management, recycling and resource efficiency, in order to facilitate the development of more effective waste management guidelines and legislation (UNEP, 2016a). Many national and local instruments have been developed that are relevant to marine litter. Of course the diversity of instruments increases dramatically where they have national or local scope, due to the fact that these instruments are tailored to the specific environmental and socioeconomic characteristics or the geographical area covered by the regulation. As is the case for regional instruments, some states (e.g. Japan, Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands) have developed overarching national legislation and policies to address marine litter, but such legislation remains uncommon globally. Up until now the more common practice has been to adopt overarching instruments under international or regional cooperation frameworks. Where states have overarching legislation, it often serves as a coordinating and planning mechanism, helping to integrate the existing instruments and to design priority actions. In addition to, or in place of, overarching approaches there are many instruments addressing specific aspects of marine litter. These can be broadly regarded as upstream instruments, such as prohibiting and disincentivizing the manufacture and use of materials and products susceptible to becoming marine plastic debris or microplastics. There are also downstream instruments which address the adequate disposal of waste on land or at sea. Upstream manufacturing instruments address, at various levels, the production of plastic pellets (California), plastic bags (Bangladesh, South Africa, China and Rwanda), polystyrene foam (Haiti and Vanuatu) and microbeads (Canada, USA federal government and nine states). Regulations using extended producer responsibility in the manufacture of plastic and plastic items are also in place in Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The most common upstream instruments in retail use target plastic bags including bans, regulation of bag thickness, taxes on end-user bags or a combination of these. Bans are also in place locally on single use food and drink related plastic products (Tamil Nadu in India and Bangladesh) and on those using polystyrene foam (NewYork City and several cities in California) (UNEP, 2016b). Downstream instruments on land take the form of mandatory recycling and separation, the collection of waste and disposal in adequately located and managed facilities and landfills, incineration and planning, and disaster preparedness, which are in place in many countries (UNEP, 2016b).

Marine Litter Vital Graphics

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