|
Battling
the Curse of Marine Litter
International Coastal
Cleanup Singapore
The Curse of Marine Litter
| Situation in Singapore mangroves | What the data
tells us | Want to help?
What
the data begins to tell us
Along with the 77 participating countries, we submitted country reports
to the Ocean Conservancy, USA, a marine conservation group. With international
data sets stretching back 14 years, they are able to make representation
to the United Nations about the global problem, and to push for laws and
enforcement against dumping trash in the ocean. In Singapore, the mangrove
clean-up is a much smaller operation (400 versus more than 1,000 on beaches).
It reflects the safety limit imposed on the tougher terrain and also, it
is an attempt to protect the forest from our impact - better a gradual process
to remove decades of litter, than a fast destructive approach. Even so,
in just 90 minutes, some three tonnes of debris were removed, of which over
90% was plastic and foam plastic.
Item |
Quantity
from
Mangrove
|
Quantity
from
Beaches
|
Total
|
Cigarette
butts |
15
|
8,903
|
8,918
|
Pieces
(foam plastic) |
1,958
|
6,602
|
8,560
|
Bags,
food bags/wrappers |
4,251
|
3,831
|
8,082
|
Straws |
2,637
|
5,299
|
7,936
|
Pieces
(plastic) |
1,483
|
6,387
|
7,870
|
Bottles,
beverages, soda |
1,170
|
4,483
|
5,653
|
Most
numerous items collected during the International Coastal Cleanup
Singapore 2001, by approximately 1200 participants in an average of
less than two hours |
 |
The
beach cleanup exercise is an older programme and many participating
schools run their sites independently, submitting data to the coordinator
at the end of the exercise. These shorelines are cleaned regularly,
most of them daily.
So the data from beaches provide an indication of how much litter
might be generated daily. More than 54,000 items of litter weighing
more than 700kg were collected from less than 25% of our shoreline
in a single day in 2001. Preliminary and conservative estimates pose
a question: are almost eight million pieces of marine trash weighing
more than 1,000 tonnes washing up on our shores each year?!
Figures like these would provide a better reflection of the problem
in our country. Thus locally, we are building the data set up to better
predict the estimated load in mangroves and provide reasonably accurate
figures about annual recruitment on the seashores of Singapore. Besides
providing data as feedback to government, the information will provide
a resource to laymen, students and organisations to stimulate efforts
that will lead to individual and societal change.
Are we really the source of the problem?
But isn't the problem coming from the sea? Interestingly, the combined
data suggests that for Singapore, more than 60% of this trash is coming
from shoreline activities.
Hence it will ultimately require the participation of the average
Singaporean and begin with personal initiatives.
But why personal practices? Well, take a look at the top six items
collected in 2001 - in less than two hours, mind you. |

Getting trash out is hard work

Moving trash to collection point

Trash collection point

Debrief by Kate Thome
|
Topping the list again are cigarette butts, the top ranked item throughout
the history of cleanup. Cigarettes are the most littered item in America
and the world according to CigaretteLitter.Org. Since cigarette filters
are made of cellulose acetate and not cotton, they can take decades to degrade.
Their high numbers on beaches and low numbers in mangroves point to shoreline
activities as the source of these items.
As for hardy plastic straws, another regular feature in cleanup data, George
Jacobs, one of our regulars, fails to understand why we still use straws
to drink, after the age of four.
The
data from bags and plastic pieces add to the compelling argument offered
by saturated land fill areas on mainland Singapore - the fact that the only
landfill we have is at Pulau Semakau, one of our southern islands, designed
to last until 2030. Issues like reducing waste in packaging, or more simply,
the use of plastic bags at supermarkets remain pertinent. Apparently, more
than one million plastic bags are handed out each day in Singapore. Yet
supermarkets are reluctant to impose a charge for plastic bags. Although
these would save major supermarkets a few million dollars a year, the cost
of irate customers is apparently not worth the effort. Hence efforts by
the Singapore Environment Council received lukewarm response earlier this
year (Kaur, 2002).
Perhaps, significant change will only be achieved when the situation becomes
more serious. Both Asian and Western countries are taking action. In Ireland
you pay for plastic bags, and the UK is examining this approach. Bangladesh
has banned polythene bags for jute, boosting their ailing jute mill industry
(Chazan, 2002). In Taiwan, mainly government establishments are banned from
offering free plastic bags and eating utensils, and a campaign is dissuading
people from using plastic bags and disposable plastic utensils (Chiu, 2002).
Obviously, significant effort still needs to be invested in educating the
public. It is not a short haul job, as our own Ministry of the Environment
can tell us. We must continue in our efforts in various ways, and remain
hopeful that one day, the combined efforts of all, locally and internationally,
will reduce the problem of trash to such an extent, that the International
Coastal Cleanup effort becomes a vague but pleasant memory.
Links
For information and photos:
If you would like to help in any capacity,
please email: N. Sivasothi at:

References
BARNES, D. K. A., 2002. Invasions by marine life on plastic
debris. Nature, 416 (25 April 2002).
CHAZAN, D., 2002. A world drowning in litter. BBC News, 4 March 2002.
CHIU, Y. T., 2002. Confident EPA says public will warm up to plastic-bag
ban. Taipei Times, 23 April 2002.
DHALIWAL, l., 2002. Bombay gets tough on plastic bags. BBC News,
14 May 2001.
KAUR, S., 2002. 1 million plastic bags change hands each day. The Straits
Times, 3rd April 2002.
The Ocean Conservancy, 2002. 2001 International Coastal Cleanup - Singapore
Summary Report. 11 pp
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