Global assessment of innovative solutions to tackle marine litter

Abstract

Marine litter is one of the most relevant pollution problems that our oceans are facing today. Marine litter in our oceans is a major threat to a sustainable planet. Here, we provide a comprehensive analysis of cutting-edge solutions developed globally to prevent, monitor and clean marine litter. Prevention in this research includes only innovative solutions to prevent litter entering oceans and seas rather than interventions such as waste reduction and recycling. On the basis of extensive search and data compilation, our analysis reveals that information is dispersed across platforms and is not easily accessible. In total, 177 solutions—the equivalent to <0.9% of the search hits—fulfilled our validation criteria and were evaluated. Most solutions (n = 106, 60%) primarily address monitoring and were developed during the past 3 years, with the scientific community being the key driver. Few solutions reached mature technical readiness and market availability, while none were validated for efficiency and environmental impact. Looking ahead, we elaborate on the limitations of the existing solutions, the challenges of developing new solutions, and provide recommendations for funding schemes and policy instruments to prevent, monitor and clean marine litter globally. In doing so, we encourage researchers, innovators and policy-makers worldwide to act towards achieving and sustaining a cleaner ocean for future generations.

#OceanOptimism: Balancing the Narrative About the Future of the Ocean

“…Upstream preventive solutions are preferable to downstream mitigation (Fabres et al, 2016;UNEP, 2016), but downstream policy-oriented solutions are more commonly implemented. Although there is a plethora of monitoring initiatives, these are not management actions and only indicate the need for (and efficacy of) actions (Bellou et al, 2021). Transboundary governance and collaboration also play a key role in addressing marine litter, and some projects 7 have demonstrated the value of such collaboration (LIFE LEMA, 2020).…”

“…Most solutions have focused on coastal macrolitter (Morales-Caselles et al, 2021), but few solutions have reached mature technical readiness and market availability (Bellou et al, 2021). In terms of microplastics (< 0.5 cm), efforts are being made both at industrial and governance levels (e.g., bans on microbeads) (Stoll et al, 2020;Gago et al, 2020), and there is promising work on identifying and genetically modifying plastic-degrading organisms and enzymes 8 .…”

Integrating Bayesian Belief Networks in a toolbox for decision support on plastic clean-up technologies in rivers and estuaries

“…Together with improved waste management efforts and the use of sustainable materials, the deployment of clean-up technologies in riverine and estuarine environments is a required solution to reduce environmental plastic pollution (Schmaltz et al, 2020). However, to date, there is a lack of empirical data concerning their efficiency and potential environmental impact (Bellou et al, 2021;Helinski et al, 2021), and a lack of integrated models to analyze both the impacts of plastics in the environment and potential responses in the context of sustainable development .…”

MARIDA: A benchmark for Marine Debris detection from Sentinel-2 remote sensing data

“…To tackle the Marine Debris issue, several solutions for detecting [5,6], cleaning [7] and preventing [8] have been developed and validated. Among those, detecting and monitoring floating litter has recently gained the attention of most research and development efforts [9].…”