EU funded project on Sustainable Plastic Waste Management

Identifying and quantifying plastic contaminant sources and leakages into the aquatic environment

EC/UNEP project, part of UNEP Plastics Initiative

Objective

This project will establish a practical methodology to identify and quantify sources of plastic pollution in the aquatic environment.

Context

There are several physical models and methodologies to address land-based sources of marine pollution, but there is no standardised tool to develop an appropriate inventory of sources of plastics entering the aquatic environments.

To address this, this project will develop a practical and useful toolkit to identify and quantify the sources of plastic pollutants entering the aquatic environment. The application of the toolkit will allow the development of source-inventories and list of hotspots, so that control bodies can better understand current scenarios and develop strategies to address water plastic pollution, with focus on priority action.

The project is executed by UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre (UNEP-IETC) in cooperation with the European Commission Directorate-General for the Environment (DG ENV), and is majorly funded by the European Commission.

Activities and expected results

Expected Result (Outcome)

Information on sources/leakages of plastics entering aquatic environment is available and used to establish baselines/targets/objectives within aquatic plastic pollution management programmes.

Outputs and activities

Output 1. A toolkit to identify and quantify sources/leakages of plastic waste entering aquatic environment.

Activity 1.1 Organisation of working group meetings
Activity 1.2 Compilation of existing methodologies and models
Activity 1.3 Development and finalisation of a target toolkit

Output 2. Source/leakage inventory of plastics entering the aquatic environment in Kenya applying the toolkit.

Activity 2.1 Identification of a pilot country
Activity 2.2 Participatory data collection
Activity 2.3 Application of the toolkit

Output 3. Communication and visibility of the project results through the existing water agreements and a future legally binding agreement on plastic pollution.