Tough fight against marine plastic litter

Herman Daly, a US ecological and Georgist economist, has proposed three rules to help build a sustainable human society: the pace at which renewable resources are used should not be faster than the rate at which they regenerate; the pace at which nonrenewable resources are used should not be faster than the rate at which their renewable substitutes can be put in place; and the pace at which pollution and wastes are discharged should not be higher than that at which natural systems can absorb or recycle them, or render them harmless.

But the massive scale of production, consumption, emission and pollution, which characterized the 20th century, and which have continued in this century, do not conform to these rules, giving rise to different types of environmental pollution problems afflicting the world. Plastic pollution, which is part of that harmful pollution, choking rivers, seas and oceans, far exceeds the absorbing and purifying capability of the water bodies.

Thanks to rapid economic development, the use of plastics has increased to such an extent that we can hardly do without them today. Yet a part of the plastic waste discharged into the seas and oceans through drains and rivers is consumed by marine animals such as whales causing their deaths, or fragmented into fine particles by crashing waves or ultraviolet rays.