More to be done to tackle marine plastic pollution

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Plastic pollution is emerging as a top threat to marine ecosystems. Every year, eight million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans around the globe, which harms marine animals and their environment, and has an adverse impact on human health and the future of our planet.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, explained that marine animals may mistakenly take plastic as food, which could enter the food chain and harm the whole ecosystem.

Tons of plastic debris covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the sea surface, blocking sunlight that is essential to marine life.

To tackle the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans, land, and air, ceaseless efforts at regional, national, and international level have been taken, but how effective are they? And what else can be done to reverse the damage this pollution is causing?

00:44

The Chinese government issued a ban on free plastic bags in 2008. However, 10 years on, the progress has been very limited according to Wu Changhua, executive director of the Professional Association for China's Environment.

Wu suggests that soon after the ban was announced, there was a positive trend in society which saw shops refrain from giving out a large number of free plastic bags. However, it did not take long for the good momentum to fade away. "If you look at the numbers today we're not making good progress, instead we're doing worse," she said.

Ma added that the thriving e-commerce increases the burden on environmental protection, as a large volume of plastic is used for packaging.

02:04

Wu believes that the problem needs to be addressed in a systematic manner from the source until the end. There's still a long way to go and much to be learned.

Ma echoed Wu's point of view, "there needs to be a multi-stakeholder collective approach," starting from "reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery."

He continued, "business cannot single-handedly roll out products that the market won't really accept. We need the government."

As the head of an environmental non-governmental organization, Ma also explained that their job is to focus on awareness building among the public, educating them on what they can do to curb the problem and consequences of their certain behavior, and beyond that, to influence government decisions on relevant policies.

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