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WEB REPORT
From source to sea — the untold story of marine litter
Approximately 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute worldwide, and up to 5 trillion plastic bags are used every year (UNEP, 2018). Some of the waste enters European seas, where an estimated 626 million ‘floating items’ (or 3,382 tonnes of waste) accumulate annually (González-Fernández et al., 2021).
In Europe, demand for plastic continues to rise and more plastic waste is generated. The EU is not on track to meet its policy goal of significantly reducing waste as it moves towards its transition from a linear economy to a circular one.
Our seas, oceans and coasts are not the clean, natural places we want them to be. Yet they can be. In this report, the EEA aims to unfold where marine litter comes from, how it is transported by rivers and the magnitude of plastic pollution — so that stakeholders can better understand how to solve the problem.
The EEA plays a key role as a provider of independent information on the environment for policymakers and the general public. In the marine environment, a new Marine Litter Assessment Tool (MALT) that was produced by the ETC/ICM for EEA, can evaluate the state of plastic pollution in coastal regions. However, although most marine litter is generated on land, the reliability of waste management data is limited and plastic litter transported via rivers remains understudied. Clearly, we need to improve our data gathering and analysis on land and in rivers to better understand and tackle the problem.
This web report focuses on plastic packaging and small non-packaging plastic items (PPSI) as most marine litter is plastic. It captures the main findings of the Eionet ETC report, Marine litter in Europe: an integrated assessment from source to sea, which assesses the growing problem and the data needed to help solve it.
Marine litter has no easy fix. The majority of beach and marine areas show worrying signs of pollution. Plastic waste generation is not yet decoupling from gross domestic product (GDP) in the EU and total EU waste generation is still growing. However, economic growth does not have to result in more plastic waste in European seas.
In the Eionet ETC report, we can see the latest evidence and analysis of how our production and consumption habits are exerting pressure on European coasts and seas. Yet if we are going to tackle the problem of marine litter, we first need to understand where it comes from.
Explore different chart formats and data here
Fully decoupling economic growth from raw material use by 2050 — as per the zero pollution and circular economy action plans — will be greatly challenged by the growing use of plastics and increasing overall consumption. We will have to recycle, reuse and dispose of our waste even better. A gradual improvement of waste management systems will not be enough.
From source to sea — the untold story of marine litter
González-Fernández, D. et al., 2021, Floating macrolitter leaked from Europe into the ocean, Nature Sustainability 4, pp 474-483 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00722-6) accessed 09 January 2023.
Plastics Europe, 2021, ‘Plastics — the facts 2021’, Plastics Europe (https://plasticseurope.org/knowledge-hub/plastics-the-facts-2021/) accessed 04 January 2023.
Plastics Europe, 2022, ‘Plastics — the facts 2022’, Plastics Europe (https://plasticseurope.org/knowledge-hub/plastics-the-facts-2022/) accessed 04 January 2023.
UNEP, 2018, ‘Our planet is choking on plastic’, United Nations Environment Programme (https://www.unep.org/interactives/beat-plastic-pollution/#:~:text=Around%20the%20world%2C%20one%20million,once%20and%20then%20thrown%20away) accessed 04 January 2023.
Web report no. 06/2022
Title: From source to sea - The untold story of marine litter
EN HTML: TH-AL-22-014-EN-Q - ISBN: 978-92-9480-518-8 - ISSN: 1977-8449 - doi: 10.2800/088047
The country assessments are the sole responsibility of the EEA member and cooperating countries supported by the EEA through guidance, translation and editing.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-marine-litter-assessment/from-source-to-sea-the or scan the QR code.
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