In support of the 2020 APEC priority “Driving Innovative Sustainability”, Malaysia, in collaboration with the Malaysian Green Technology & Climate Change Centre (MGTC) and Ocean Conservancy, will co-host a marine debris webinar series. The main objective of the webinar series is to explore options to build a new, innovative economy around waste and recycling in APEC economies in order to reduce marine litter, spur economic development, and support the growth of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the region. The series will identify funding opportunities for innovative policies and technologies geared towards the circular economy; pathways to integrate APEC economy companies, including SMEs, into existing support networks and technology incubators; and methods to enable those companies to deploy their innovations in the markets where they are needed most.
country list: Republic of Korea
Single-use plastic bottles and their alternatives – Recommendations from Life Cycle Assessments
The study considers single-use plastic bottles and alternatives that could potentially replace them from a functional and transportation point of view.
Changing Sails: Accelerating Regional Actions for Sustainable Oceans in Asia and the Pacific
Produced in line with the 76th Session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the theme study Changing Sails: Accelerating Regional Actions for Sustainable Oceans in Asia and the Pacific explores the key areas around which regional platforms can rally interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral solutions for the ocean. It highlights the lack of data and statistics on the ocean, the growing demand for moving towards inclusive and green maritime shipping, deteriorating fish stocks and gaps in fisheries management and the mounting pressure of marine plastic pollution.
SEA circular country profile: South Korea
This SEA circular country profile for South Korea covers the socio-economic profile of South Korea, and the coastal and marine ecosystem and economy. It details the plastics and packaging production and usage status and covers aspects of solid waste management – and the impact of both of these factors on marine litter status. Actions taken on marine plastics are detailed, covering government actions and the private sector. Global, regional and national policy frameworks related to South Korea are detailed.
The Ocean Finance Handbook: Increasing finance for a healthy ocean
The Ocean Finance Handbook takes stock of the current ocean-scape of finance and provides an introduction to those seeking to increase their understanding of finance and investment in the sustainable blue economy. The Ocean Finance Handbook provides a concise summary of the various means by which finance flows to the ocean can be enhanced, to support the development of the sustainable blue economy.
Plastic use rising in SEA due to COVID-19
13 April 2020, Bangkok, Thailand: Single-use plastic bags are making a comeback as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
After their use was restricted at the start of the year, plastic bags can once again be seen littering the streets of greater Bangkok as people begin to rely on take-outs and food delivery services to adhere to the government’s social distancing guidelines, said director-general of the Pollution Control Department (PCD), Pralong Dumrongthai.
According to the PCD, the volume of plastic waste has increased significantly since March 26, when the government banned restaurants from serving dine-in patrons. “Most of the waste is ready-to-eat food packages, plastic utensils and glass,” he said.
According to Dumrongthai, the problem is compounded by the absence of a public campaign to educate people about the importance of sorting their waste.
“People tend to combine their garbage, often mixing food scraps with recyclables, which makes it harder for garbage collectors to sort it out and recycle,” he said.
With grocery stores being one of the few places still open during COVID-19 lockdowns, disposable plastic bags are also making a comeback as some people fear that reusable bags could spread the disease. Before the pandemic, a growing number of governments banned single-use plastic bags in an effort to cut down on waste. But as the novel coronavirus has spread around the globe, people are increasingly concerned about coming in close contact with other people and their possessions, including reusable bags.
Supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City to be free of plastic bags by the end of this year
3 April 2020, HCMC, Viet Nam: All supermarkets, trade centres, convenience stories, and bookstores in Ho Chi Minh City are striving to replace plastic bags with environmentally friendly options by the end of this year.
This move is part of the city’s programme launched in mid-2019 to fight against plastic waste.
The programme also targets a 50% of reduction in plastic bag consumption among traders at traditional markets
The municipal authorities have ordered for the set-up of drop-off collection points where people can swap plastic waste and used plastic products for gifts or consumer goods.
Local residents are also encouraged to classify their garbage in a bid to reduce the harmful effects of household waste on the environment and to increase recycling capacity.
A survey conducted by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment found that the volume of plastic trash in the city is just behind that of food waste, with an estimated 250,000 tonnes of plastic waste discarded each year.
According to the City’s waste recycling fund, if the 48,000 tonnes of plastic waste which is buried in the southern metropolis each year is instead recycled, the city would save about VND 15 billion (US$660,000) annually.
#CleanSeas #StayHome challenge
4 May 2020: Children worldwide are out of school and learning from home, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
It can be difficult to occupy your children with exciting activities for hours on end, especially when you may also be working from home.
UNEP are inviting you to to take part in a creative new social media challenge, focusing on plastic pollution and recycling.
Get involved without even leaving the house, by getting creative with the everyday plastic waste in your household, and learning more about plastic waste at the same time.
Your child can chose from a range of activity suggestions and post their plastic waste activity on social media using the #CleanSeas and #StayHome hashtags for a chance to be featured on UNEP social media channels.
Ideas:
- Make a musical instrument out of plastic rubbish
- Sorting your plastic items
- Have a plastic-free spa day
- Make a boat from plastic waste- see if it floats!
- Put on a fashion show of clothes made from plastic waste
Idea 1: make a musical instrument out of plastic rubbish
Encourage your children to use (clean) plastic rubbish to make their own instruments. They can even put on a concert for you or for social media. Click here to get some inspiration for the instruments you could make.
Idea 2: go through your cupboards and sort its content, like utensils, etc. into the type of material they are made of
Every day we use lots of plastic products without thinking about their impact on the planet. Go into your kitchen cupboards with your child and ask them to sort everything into the type of material (plastics, cardboard, aluminum, etc.) Ask your children to pick out the items that can be recycled and show them where on the packaging they can see if its recyclable or not. The United Nations Environment Programme Clean Seas educational pack can help to show children in greater detail what different types of plastic are out there, and ways that they can reduce their use of them.
Idea 3: have a plastic-free spa day
You might not be able to go out to a spa, but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring the spa to you! From baby wipes to scrubs with microplastics in (plastic pieces smaller than 5 mm), plastic is hidden in plain sight in many personal care products. Here you can see some of the sources of plastic pollution in your bathroom. A great way to combat hidden plastics is to have a do-it-yourself family home spa day. You can show your children how to make great natural scrubs from coconut oil, sugar and salt, and you can also make face masks from honey and bananas. Make some home treatments, put on some calming music, and relax.
Idea 4: make a boat out of plastic waste
Many things that seem like soon-to-be trash can be given a fun new lease of life. Using plastic that you might otherwise throw away, help your child to make a small plastic raft or boat. They can put them in the bath or sink to see if they float and even take their toys on a boat ride! If possible, you could even take them to your local pond or stream and have raft races.
A recent Clean Seas campaign took part in this activity on a larger scale. A nine-metre long dhow made from 10 tonnes of recycled trash found on Kenya’s shorelines called “Flipflopi” sailed from Lamu, Kenya to Zanzibar raising awareness about plastic pollution.
Idea 5: put on a fashion show of clothes made out of rubbish
Upcycling—or “making new furniture, objects, etc. out of old or used things or waste material”—is one of the best fashion trends for the environment. In 2016, American Rob Greenfield wore every piece of trash he created in a month, turning it into a bulky trash-suit. Why not get your child to make some stylish fashion accessories out of plastic waste? They can put on a fashion show for you with their new creations!
There are many more ways that you can teach your children about plastic pollution and its impacts. UNEP’s Clean Seas website has advice for how to reduce your plastic footprint, and the impact that plastic pollution is having.
More activities for homeschooling about the oceans! Take a virtual dive:
The Ocean Agency, a partner of the United Nations Environment Programme, is inviting parents and their little ones to experience the ocean and its astounding life forms from the comfort of their homes through a little armchair travel. Get inspired and engaged with virtual dives, expeditions and ocean quizzes about the fascinating underwater world in a click on your phone or laptop.
Hotels in SEA focus on ‘less plastic wasted’ when they re-open for business after COVID-19
UNEP is working with the hotel and hospitality sector in South-East Asia to reduce plastic use when they re-open for business after COVID-19.
27 March 2020, Bangkok, Thailand: As the tourism industry faces a crisis in South-East Asia due to coronavirus restrictions on travel, hotels are experiencing an unprecedented hiatus to ‘business as usual’. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is continuing to work with hotel personnel to leverage this time to reduce their operation’s plastic waste – with a goal to eradicate marine litter in South-East Asia.
The SEA circular initiative has held the first of many industry e-Roundtables to link-up private sector professionals in a joint effort to explore synergies to tackle the regional marine litter problem together.
Plastic is ubiquitous in the hospitality industry. From the cups, straws, coffee lids, shampoo bottles, amenity kits, water bottles, and room minibars, to the hotel breakfast buffets, event spaces, back-of-house activities and supply chain distributors, plastics are everywhere in the industry – supporting requirements for convenience, sanitation and aesthetic appeal.
UNEP and the Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) – are working with the hotel sector through the SEA circular initiative, funded by the Government of Sweden. With the ultimate goal to inspire market-based solutions and encourage enabling policies to prevent marine plastic pollution, the project is working with South-East Asian governments, businesses and community-led organizations, with the goal of ‘less plastic wasted’ throughout the region.
Prominent hotels in South-East Asia are pioneering the field in the drive towards less plastic wasted. Through the SEA circular project, UNEP is working to ensure that the best practices and learnings from these enterprises serve to drive regional industry standards towards less plastic wasted. SEA circular is working with industry leaders – including the Phuket Hotel Association in Phuket, Thailand.
Phuket Hotel Association, Thailand: “Sustainable Phuket”
The Phuket Hotel Association (PHA) is an influential network of 75 hotels based in the island of Phuket, Thailand. The organization has set itself ambitious goals to make Phuket a sustainable destination, through responsible best practice. They are also the driving force behind an annual event launched in 2019 – the Phuket Hotels for Islands Sustaining Tourism (PHIST), billed as Asia’s largest, most innovative, and most important movement to bring sustainability to the region’s hospitality and tourism industry.
“We are continually engaging with our members and working to train key personnel to reduce plastic usage,” said Jayne MacDougall, Director of Risk Management, Le Meridian Phuket Beach Resort and Environmental Working Group, PHA.
“We started with the complete elimination of plastic bottles and straws from all our hotels, focusing on front-of-house. We have since launched a ‘Big Green Book’ of reputable suppliers and distributorsand we connect regularly with our hotels to support their monitoring and reduction of plastic waste.”
At the SEA circular e-Roundtable: Reducing plastic waste in the hospitality industry” event on 27 March 2020, PHA announced a collaboration with the Global Tourism Plastic Initiative (GTPI), led by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and UNEP, in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
This initiative unites the tourism sector behind a common vision to tackle the root causes of plastic pollution, enabling businesses and governments to take joint action.
“The collaboration of PHA with the GTPI will scale up our endeavours towards tackling plastic waste in Phuket,” said Jayne. “Our goal is to protect our sublime natural environment in Southern Thailand, and for PHA to inspire behaviour change throughout the industry – through our collaboration with UNEP and UNWTO.”
SEA circular e-Roundtable for the hospitality sector:
SEA circular is holding a series of ‘e-Roundtable events’ for various sectors to support plastic pollution prevention. For the hospitality industry, the e-Roundtable was held for hoteliers and tourism accommodation owners. Hoteliers discussed best practices, lessons learned and incentives for aggregate industry action. The aim was to support and urgently scale-up plastic waste reduction initiatives and commitments. The e-Roundtable explored solutions for more challenging issues, including the plastic items coming in from suppliers and from back-of-house activities. These involve areas which are not customer-facing – but are no less damaging.
SEA circular’s engagement with key players in the hotel industry will also provide vital opportunities for industry information-sharing amongst common initiatives. The ultimate goal is that collective monitoring and promotion of best practices can drive industry standards towards less plastic wasted. Concrete solutions include; reducing plastic packaging used for bathroom amenities, reducing the use of plastic bags in hotel rooms, reduction of plastic water bottles, and the elimination of plastic straws and single use plastic food or drink containers. Other initiatives to support a more circular approach to waste management include the installation of separate trash bins and waste segregation, as well as incentives and awareness-raising for guests to commit to use less plastic
Waste management an essential public service in the fight to beat COVID-19
Geneva, 24 March 2020: With the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continuing to spread and its impacts upon human health and the economy intensifying day-by-day, governments are urged to treat waste management, including of medical, household and other hazardous waste, as an urgent and essential public service in order to minimise possible secondary impacts upon health and the environment.
During such an outbreak, many types of additional medical and hazardous waste are generated, including infected masks, gloves and other protective equipment, together with a higher volume of non-infected items of the same nature. Unsound management of this waste could cause unforeseen “knock-on” effects on human health and the environment. The safe handling, and final disposal of this waste is therefore a vital element in an effective emergency response.
Effective management of biomedical and health-care waste requires appropriate identification, collection, separation, storage, transportation, treatment and disposal, as well as important associated aspects including disinfection, personnel protection and training. The UN Basel Convention’s Technical Guidelines on the Environmentally Sound Management of Biomedical and Healthcare Wastes, includes information and practical aspects of waste management useful for authorities seeking to minimise hazards to human health and the environment.
Further resources on the safe handling and final disposal of medical wastes can be found on the website of the Basel Convention’s Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific, in Beijing, which lists a series of guidance documents and best practices.
The safe management of household waste is also likely to be critical during the COVID-19 emergency. Medical waste such as contaminated masks, gloves, used or expired medicines, and other items can easily become mixed with domestic garbage, but should be treated as hazardous waste and disposed of separately. These should be separately stored from other household waste streams and collected by specialist municipality or waste management operators. Guidelines on the specificities of recycling or disposing of such waste is given in detail in the Basel Convention’s Factsheet on Healthcare or Medical Waste.
Parties to the Basel Convention are currently working on a guidance document for soundly managing household waste and whilst not yet finalized, an initial draft may be consulted for provisional guidance.
The BRS Executive Secretary, Rolph Payet, stated that “All branches of society are coming together to collectively beat the virus and to minimize the human and economic impact of COVID-19 across the world. In tackling this enormous and unprecedented challenge, I urge decision-makers at every level: international, nationally, and at municipal, city and district levels, to make every effort to ensure that waste management, including that from medical and household sources, is given the attention – indeed priority – it requires in order to ensure the minimization of impacts upon human health and the environment from these potentially hazardous waste streams.”