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