our plastics, our problems, our solutions
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Our plastics, our problems, our solutionsBritta Denise Hardesty
Monday 30 October 2017
• OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERE
What do you know about marine debris?
Marine debris includes all
objects found in the marine
environment that don’t
naturally occur in those areas.
Is it an issue?
How big an issue?
‘If you measure it, You can manage it’
Understand it? Design for it
Engage in it? Guide it
Participate in it? Influence it
Use it? Circularize it
CSIRO Marine Debris Research ProgramResearch ~ 10 years of work; 40+ pubs/reports• Identify distribution and sources of marine debris
• Modelling marine litter movement, transport, accumulation• Assess likely risk to wildlife and food fish
• Identify potential policy solutions at local, regional, national and
international scales
• Global harmonization of monitoring methods
Engagement• Citizen science program with Schools, Educators, Coastal Volunteers and Industry
Leaders (~8,000 participants)• Content for schools, linked to national curriculum• Engage w/ government to deliver information on effective, affordable solutions
A risk framework approach
• Conceptually broad remit
• Framework allows variable amounts/types of info
• Data to underpin/drive action
• Understand (*quantify) our uncertainty
Framework components
Where does plastic pollution come from?
- 8 Million tonnes per year- Doubles every 11 years- Asia biggest source- China, Indonesia, Philippines
Jambeck et al. 2015
Concentrated in- Coastal areas- Gyres
~ 250,000 tons (surface)
van Sebille et al. 2015
Plastic entering the oceans
~ 8 M metric Tonnes per year
… for every meter of coastline
Jambeck et al. 2015
What can you learn from it?
1. Baseline, sources, and movement
2. Drivers of plastic pollution
3. Risk assessment
4. Policy responses (interdiction points)
What does large scale monitoring look like?
– Some cautions
– How much time? cost?
What might it look like globally?
Measuring plastic pollution
4. Risk management
1. Building a national picture
2. Understanding drivers3. Human health
5. Story of hope
• Sampling: Shape, substrate, habitat?• Local effects: Usage? Waste disposal?• Dynamics: Wind, currents, flooding?• Drivers: Population, Economics?
Key Considerations• Cheap and fast• Repeatable• Representative
1. Building a national picture
Coastal plastic pollution in Australia
Most is domestic in origin
Currents and winds drive local retention and transport
Small scale patterns point to illegal dumping, other drivers
Most plastic stays local- Model-based- Count particles within ‘littoral zone’ (8km of coast)
- >90% of particles remain nearshore after 1 week- Most within 100 km of the source
2. Understanding drivers of plastic pollution
Socio-economicsPopulationLand use
Data from CSIRO, CUA, KAB & KESAB
National Debris Hotspots
• Analyses are adjusted for effort
Population is important – Is land use?
What drives plastic pollution on land?
>
>Conservation
Waterways
Grazing
Agricultural
>
Does site type matter?
What drives plastic pollution on land?
Do socioeconomics matter?
What drives plastic pollution on land?
Poverty
Jobs
Education
… come back tomorrow
What can governments do?
What policies are effective?
Mostly microplastics.Mostly fibers, film-like plastic
Lusher et al. 2013
What size? What type?
% 32% 52% 29% 40% 48% 52% 38% 32% 26% 24%
3. Human Health - Plastics in our food?
Mostly microplastics.Mostly fibers, film-like plastic
Lusher et al. 2013
What size? What type?
% 32% 52% 29% 40% 48% 52% 38% 32% 26% 24%
Plastics in our food?
4. Risk Management and policy responses
Hardesty and Wilcox 2017
At unclear and voluntary end….
Hardesty and Wilcox 2017
…and the other extreme, response to human death
Hardesty and Wilcox 2017
Ghana – flooding during rainy season plastic clogging drains, 11 people die, President bans plastic less than 20 microns thick
5. A success story from Jakarta
… A New (global) project
Objectives
1. Quantify land-based pollution
2. Identify hotspots for loss
3. Investigate driving variables
https://research.csiro.au/marinedebris/
Britta Denise Hardesty CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere
t +61 3 6232 5276e denise.hardesty@csiro.auw https://research.csiro.au/marinedebris
CSIRO team:Chris WilcoxQamar SchuylerTJ LawsonVanessa MannKathy WillisKelsey RichardsonJustine Barrett
Thank you! Clean Up AustraliaKeep Australia/SA Beautiful
Australian Packaging CovenantNESP Biodiversity Hub
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