A garbage truck in the sea every minute of every day: can plastic-loving Asia pull itself out of its ocean pollution crisis?
More than half the world’s plastic waste comes from China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – the biggest consumers of the material and whose waste management is at best patchy
A Vietnamese mangrove draped with polythene, a whale killed after swallowing waste bags in Thai seas and clouds of underwater trash near Indonesian “paradise” islands – grim images of the plastic crisis that has gripped Asia.
About eight million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into the world’s oceans every year, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic being tipped into the sea every minute of every day.
More than half comes from five Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a 2015 Ocean Conservancy report.
They are among the fastest growing economies in Asia, where much of the world’s plastic is produced, consumed and discarded – most of it improperly in countries where waste management is at best patchy.
“We are in a plastic pollution crisis, we can see it everywhere in our rivers, in our oceans … we need to do something about it,” said Greenpeace Indonesia campaigner Ahmad Ashov Birry.