This list has been stable in recent years and over different regional seas within Europe. The top 10 most commonly found SUP makes up 86% of all SUP in beach litter and is responsible for more than half of plastic marine litter. Single use plastics include small packaging, bags, disposable cups, lids, straws and cutlery. These items are particularly litter prone. plastic packaging or other consumer products made of plastic that are designed to be used once, often away from home, and thrown away after a brief use. Non-plastic marine litter is often inert (stone) or biodegradable (paper, wood) and thus poses a lower environmental threat. Together, these constitute 84% of plastic marine litter items 5, among them the most environmentally harmful items in the marine environment. It is a targeted and proportionate initiative that directly addresses the two main sources of marine litter in Europe – i) single use plastics and ii) fishing gear. The main objective here is to incentivise bringing all fishing gear ashore and improve its handling there.Ģ.
The initiative also tackles lost fishing gear because of its direct pathway to the sea. In cases where marine litter will still occur, the resulting shift from single use plastics to reusable solutions and many natural, untreated alternative materials should lead to a reduced environmental impact. As a result, innovation for new business models (such as reuse models), multi-use items or material substitution will be boosted. by market restrictions and producers paying for clean-up.
The main objective is prevention – reducing plastic marine litter of single use plastic and fishing gear e.g. The legislative initiative that this Impact Assessment accompanies complements all of these actions on design, recycling and microplastics and goes one step further. The revised Waste Framework Directive has strengthened general principles and objectives ambitious 2030 recycling targets for municipal waste and plastic packaging are also set however these can be reached without in depth efforts on littering or waste prevention. It also includes a strong response on microplastics, a significant source of marine pollution. The strategy pushes an ambitious approach for plastic packaging recyclability, in line with our revised waste legislation. The Plastics strategy already tackles the design part of the cycle, for example, through a review of the essential requirements of the Packaging Directive. This initiative is an integral and complementary part of a much wider, comprehensive approach, namely the Plastics Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan and the revised waste legislation. This Impact Assessment supports a legal initiative aiming to reduce marine litter, as part of a wider approach:ġ. Joined-up action is needed, also to ensure a single market with high environmental standards and legal certainty for businesses. The problem of marine litter is transboundary by nature, as litter moves in the marine environment and litter originating from one country can affect another.
As part of the Plastics Strategy, the European Commission committed itself to look into further action to address plastic marine litter that builds on the piecemeal efforts underway in EU Member States. It threatens food chains, especially seafood.Įurope has a responsibility to deal with its part of the problem and committed to act globally. For instance, the cost of marine litter to EU fisheries is estimated at between 1% 3 and 5% 4 of total revenues from catches by the EU fleet. In addition to harming the environment, marine litter damages activities such as tourism, fisheries and shipping. It is a global problem as acknowledged by many initiatives worldwide 2 but Europe is a source and suffers the impacts. Due to its persistency, t hese impacts are growing as each year we generate more plastic waste. The need to tackle these problems and reduce the environmental, economic and social harm is widely recognised.īeing widely available, persistent and used for applications prone to littering plastic 1 is the main source of marine litter as it is hardly biodegradable and it can have toxic and other harmful impacts. The potential economic and environmental benefits of a more resource-efficient and circular approach are not realised. At the same time, valuable material that could be brought back into the economy is lost, once littered. The amount of marine litter in oceans and seas is growing, to the detriment of ecosystems, biodiversity and potentially human health causing widespread concern. Plastics play an important role in our economy and daily lives but the way it is currently produced, used and discarded harms the environment.