Marine litter. A plight of our fishermen that we can resolve, together - Main contents

Plastics make up 85% of litter items on European beaches. Half is ‘single-use plastic’, used only once for a short time, before being discarded. Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear accounts for another quarter. Half of the litter found on EU beaches is single-use plastics, with lost or abandoned fishing gear representing another quarter. Those sobering statistics account only for the plastic on beaches. What of the plastic that remains at sea?

In the last few weeks alone, the world has woken up to news like plastic pollution reaching Antarctica, and being found at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, ten kilometres down, in the deepest part of the ocean, in the remotest eco-systems on the planet. We now know what harm plastic does to marine life; the horrifying photographs of plastic inside birds’ stomachs or turtles entangled in fishing nets have become all too familiar, while the impact of microplastics on human health is yet to be fully understood.

It’s a situation that can’t continue. So with the engagement, and urgings of Europe’s citizens, the European Commission has decided to act. What we propose is a complete rethink of the way we use plastic, with new rules targeting fishing gear and the 10 single-use products most often found on beaches and in seas.

The fishing community naturally finds itself in the frontline of the fight against marine litter. Fishermen have known about the problem for longer than most, faced as they are with it day after day. They have already suffered the consequences

The cost of repairing fishing gear damaged by marine litter, entangled propellers and obstructed cooling systems in Europe is estimated at €60 million a year. And that is without considering the potential catastrophic commercial and health impacts of contaminated seafood ending up on the market..

Fishermen are already contributing to the solution. There are many existing schemes, some supported by local authorities, some by the European Union’s Maritime and Fisheries Fund, to collect litter, including plastic, found in nets during fishing operations and bring it back to shore. Some of the litter comes from fishing but some does not. The latter includes bottles, plastic wrapping, balloons, tyres and many more objects that have no place in the ocean. In other words, fishermen are helping to clean up the mess that others have created.

Now, in moving the focus from individual projects, this January, the Commission introduced a proposal to make responsible management of marine waste standard practice. In a way, this was recognition at European level that the involvement and efforts of fishermen go well beyond managing fishing gear. In the future, the fees that boats pay at port to discharge their litter will not depend on the amount of litter landed. In this way fishermen that collect more garbage will not be financially “punished” and throwing it back in the sea will no longer be a temptation.

While not all the litter in the sea comes from fishing, we should also recognize that it makes up a substantial proportion. A study of UK beaches found that most of the plastic on beaches came from fishing. 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of fishing gear. And scientific trawls of the seabed of the North Sea find that the density of lost fishing gear in the North Sea has increased over the past two decades. That is why we are proposing a number of measures aimed specifically at this.

First of all, we observe that the return of broken or end of life gear is much higher when there are proper schemes in place to collect it from the quayside and bring it to processing plants for recycling or incineration. We propose that this collection and processing be the responsibility of the producers of the gear. This would be similar to that which exists for many products such as electrical goods, batteries or certain plastic bottles. The extra cost would represent less than 0.15% of revenue - a small price if we know that marine litter today costs between 1 and 5% of total revenue for the fishing sector.

Other measures are in the pipeline. We will make it easier for fishermen to report lost gear; by using mobile phones in the case of small boats. Knowing where there are concentrations of this gear can greatly improve the effectiveness of retrieval measures. Our proposals for a maritime and fisheries fund after 2020 include measures to help authorities organize such operations.

Finally, we are talking to authorities in other continents, starting with Asia where waste management practice has not kept pace with plastic production and where half of all ocean plastic originates.

The battle is not over but I believe we are turning the corner. If we continue along this path we can save the ocean for our children and grandchildren. And for the fishermen of tomorrow.

The alternative is unthinkable.

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This article was originally published in Spanish in Industrias Pesqueras http://www.industriaspesqueras.com