Indian Ocean enters Plastic Age
The magnitude of pollution in waterways and oceans is now so much that the world may be entering the “Plastic Age” . The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) claims that globally 400 million tons of plastic are produced annually yet smart technology, water sensors and integrated cloud data systems can eradicate marine pollution. There is a consensus in the developing maritime world that the financial and technological burden should initially be shouldered by the developed maritime countries.
IGO’s
Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) including United Nations , United Nations Environment Programme and European Union have charted out and implemented policies in regards to mitigation of marine pollution. Ventures such as Ocean Clean Up, RiverRecycle, Seabin Project and Plastic Fischer are prime instances of presence of Europeans combating marine plastic pollution in the Indian Ocean region. Each venture may utilise a different technology to combat marine pollution. Methodologies vary from usage of floating barriers and bins and selling off waste through a process of sorting, reusing, recycling and finally disposing waste .
Capital Investment and Human Resource
Marine Projects are capital intensive involving extensive research and sophisticated technologies such as floating barriers and artificial coastlines. By default developing coastal nations usually have huge labour available routinely deployed to prevent plastic debris from entering inland waterways, prevalence of individuals engaged in scavenging or simply diverting manpower to collect tons of low valued plastics being a normal practice.
GOOS
Maritime countries being members of the UN are under compulsion to ensure that UNDP goal for the year 2025 is met which stipulates that marine pollution has to be prevented and significantly reduced if not eliminated. As per UNDP’s report Pakistan has more than 3.3 million tons of plastic waste per annum scattered in landfills , water bodies and inland waterways due to inefficient waste management mechanism which is a toxic catastrophe in the making. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) stresses adherence to a program known as Global Ocean Observation System (GOOS) operating under UNESCO’s umbrella which has the additional benefit of enabling access to technologies for tracking marine heat waves, safety of life at sea and ensuring sea grass ecosystems remain intact in supporting coastal life. GOOS or Global Ocean Observation System is a program from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) which came into existence after it was sensitised that without weather and ocean observations at sea mariners and coastal communities would be endangered and vulnerable to extreme maritime weather events. The GOOS is in the process of expanding coverage within the Indian and Southern Ocean regions emphasising high quality data collection from ships and autonomous instruments attached to buoys of all ranges in harbours and seaports.
Authored by Razeen Ahmed
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