It very much depends on the ...

Published by Nuraini Mohamed Arsad, Scientist - Soil & Groundwater at Shell Global Solutions

It very much depends on the scale of the beach and the waste stream that feeds to the sea. There probably won't be a single silver bullet solution, rather a combination of effective municipal recycling and waste collection, resort/tourist waste curtailing (e.g. banning of plastic straws and cups, public drinking fountains, etc.), resort-side waste reduction with potential incentives to recognize best practice, beach clean-up and other citizen action.

Clean-ups would still be necessary even if the landward prevention side happens well, because it would likely wash in from other shores, sometimes across from other countries.

By the time trash already gets to the sea it becomes much harder to remove.

1 Comment

I totally agree with you : Unlike other skillfull communicants, I don't pretend to solve the plastic waste problem in the world Oceans in one single action !!! I am ambitious but realistic so I want to tackle the problem on a smaller scale (to start with !). I am a coastal oceanographer I think that collecting trash when it arrives in the ocean is more efficient and more realistic than trying to collect microplastiques wandering around the planet. My focus is to increase the efficiency of waste collecting in the sea by using several tools used in other fields of operational oceanography. In order to start serious discussions on this project I wanted to know if anybody had facts and figures concerning the compared efficiency of trash collecting at sea VS trash collecting on the shore. It seems these data are difficult to find or do not exist ! Thank you for your contribution ! please let me know if my project arises more questions.

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