We looked for South Africa’s ‘missing’ plastic litter. This is what we found
Author:
Peter Ryan, Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town
Published:
The Conversation, 8 June 2020
From the article:
Every year, the world produces about 300 million tonnes of plastic. Somewhere between 5 million and 12 million tonnes of it finds its way into the oceans, according to a 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck and colleagues. But only a tiny fraction of that is estimated to be floating at sea - around 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes, or less than 5% of the annual input.
So where does all the plastic go?
Blog owner's notes:
* Was surprised by the fact that "South Africa is thought to be one of the worst contributors of plastic into the sea globally"
See: The transport and fate of marine plastics in South Africa and adjacent oceans, by Peter G. Ryan published in South African Journal of Science, Volume 116, Number 5/6 (2020)
* The above-mentioned article led me to this article that is also worth reading:
Peter G. Ryan, Lorien Pichegru, Vonica Perold, Coleen L. Moloney, Monitoring marine plastics – will we know if we are making a difference? South African Journal of Science, Volume 116, Number 5/6 (2020).
Points mentioned under significance in the latter scholarly article:
- "Monitoring is required to assess whether mitigation measures to reduce waste plastics at sea are making a difference.
- Monitoring the leakage of plastic from land-based sources is best addressed on land (e.g. in storm drains and river run-off) before the plastic reaches the sea.
- Illegal dumping from ships is best addressed by monitoring the use of port waste reception facilities.
- Sampling plastic ingested by biota is a powerful approach, using fish and invertebrates as bioindicators for larger microplastic fragments."