Millions of tonnes of plastic waste is dumped into the oceans yearly. Image: The Ocean Cleanup
(The Post News)- Millions of tonnes of plastic waster are dumped every year in the world’s waterways, which often end up in the oceans in the form of bottles, tyres, packaging and piping. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warns the amount of plastic waste could almost double by 2060 unless strong measures are taken against the plastic pollution.
In a 2023 report, the OECD said that due to mass production of the material from the 1950s to 2019, 140 million tonnes have already accumulated in the rivers, lakes and oceans. Some 22% of this forms what is known as a “plastic soup” in the oceans and 78% in freshwater ecosystems.
The main source of pollution of the aquatic environment is plastic burned in open pits or tossed in uncontrolled or unauthorized dumpsites. Other factors include plastic waste winding up in freshwater, with a large portion including bottles and plastic in the construction sector, which sink in waterways and lakes. The OECD says the rest including food packaging and closed bottles floats for years, even decades before ending up in the oceans.
The risk of plastic moving from land to the waterways, and then into the sea, differs from location to location, according to a 2021 study by researchers for NGO Ocean Cleanup published in the Science Advances journal, it is said out of 100 000 waterways, only 1 000 are responsible for four-fifths of microplastic waste in the oceans, which leaves the remaining fifth from 30 000 other rivers. According to Ocean Cleanup director of research, Laurent Leberton, out of the 50 main rivers carrying plastic to the ocean, including small urban waterways, 44 are in Asia.
The OECD claims the rising population and economic growth is driven by the global use of plastic should triple between 2019 and 2060, to 1,231 million tonnes per year, which is a gloomy outlook for the aquatic environment where 493 Mt of plastic would possibly pile up by 2060, of which over half from sub-Saharan Africa, China, Indi and other developing Asian countries.
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