5 Asian countries responsible for 60% of plastics in oceans

If there are fish kills in bodies of water or carcasses of marine creatures being washed up on shores, chances are the death of the marine life had something to do with plastics that were ingested by the fishes and other sea creatures. And about 60 percent of these plastics come from five Asian nations.

A new report, made by McKinsey & Co and Ocean Conservancy, names the five countries as Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, China and the Philippines, reports Quartz. However, while the five nations’ waste per capita is relatively small in comparison to western nations, why the non-biodegradable materials end up in oceans, lakes, rivers and creeks is because of the waste-management infrastructure in these developing economies.

The report notes that the bulk of the plastics in oceans are from the land, not vessels that ply these waters. It is often leaked from collection sites to the ocean, although some end up in waterways because it was never collected in the first place.

Their waste-management infrastructure is made up mostly of waste-pickers who sift through tonnes of garbage to look for reusable things they could sell to junk shops. While considered the “unsung heroes of conservation,” the report says these people need more support such as recognition of their working conditions and crafting long-term plans to upgrade their conditions.

To do that, the authors recommended that $5 billion (AUD$7.2 billion) be spent annually over the next decade. It is timely because the study also projects that global growth in the next decade in the use of plastic-intensive consumer goods that by 2025, it is projected that there would be one tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of finfish.