Tag: plastics

India announced that it will ban the use of single use plastics on board Indian ships and foreign ships, when these ships are at a port or place in India. The ban will take effect from 1 January 2020.

The last 3 decades have seen an increase in plastic drink bottles, as they are the fastest growing form of pollution, in comparison to all debris types on remote Inaccessible Island; A newly-launched report notes that the rapid growth in Asian debris, mainly from China, coupled with the recent manufacture of these items, indicates that ships are responsible for most of the bottles floating in the central South Atlantic Ocean

While walking along the coast, one can come across broken bottles, plastic toys and food wrappers among others, but cigarette butts appear to be the most common. In fact, cigarette butts are a prevalent, lasting, and toxic form of marine debris, that can potentially harm marine organisms and their environments.

On beaches across Europe and the world, EU staff are cooperating with local communities to clean up marine litter as part of the #EUBeachCleanUp campaign. Launched on 19 August, this year's campaign will run through October, with actions taking place in more than 80 countries, on all populated continents.

The Government of Canada, is investing into a variety of options to recycle and dispose boats made of fibreglass, aiming to protect Canada’s land and waterways from plastic waste and marine litter. Transport Canada proposed to Canadian small and medium-sized businesses to lead innovative solutions for recycling or reusing fibreglass.

The Ocean Cleanup announced that after a 6-week testing campaign, its main technical challenge is solved by modifying the system to move at a consistent speed through the plastic. The slow-down configuration was most effective in the trials.

Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced that the Government is taking additional steps to reduce Canada’s plastic waste, support innovation, and promote the use of affordable and safe alternatives. These measures will be based in scientific evidence and will align with similar actions being taken in the EU and other countries.

The University of the Aegean start a series of tracking and quantifying plastic garbage in the sea, in 2018, called 'Plastic Litter Project (PLP)'. The program aims to remotely locate, large quantities of plastics in the sea, aiming to remove them more efficiently.

WWF Norway collaborated with the scientific whale project 'Arctic Whale', aiming to share knowledge on plastic pollution in the Arctic with the public. Arctic Whale will conduct an Arctic roundtrip from May to July 2019, with WWF contributing with their expertise on plastic pollution and the Arctic area. 

Getting closer to 2020, our industry is under pressure to innovate sustainably and show its change-ready profile to the strict climate-alerting regulations. While remarkable progress has been made, it is of much interest to look where the inefficiencies lie as well as how close we are to properly manage CO2, SOx & NOx challenges and meet the goals and aspirations set by IMO.