The Marine Plastic Footprint

In 2020, Switzerland based publication IUCN published ‘The marine plastic footprint: towards a science-based metric for measuring marine plastic leakage and increasing the materiality and circularity of plastic’. According to the report, 12 million tonnes of plastic pollutes the ocean every year, resulting in an unparalleled environmental crisis. Presently there is a lack of an effective mechanism for forecasting the quantity of marine plastic leakage from a certain industry or nation.

The report provides a step-by-step approach for measuring the accumulation of marine plastic pollution. It also supplies generic data that can be used to calculate marine plastic leakage for sources like plastic waste, textile fibres, tyre dust, microbeads in cosmetics, and fishing nets. The paper also intends to explain key concepts and definitions linked to the Marine Plastic Footprint, which will benefit in the generation of better data and its application. 

Three case studies have been taken into account to analyse the impact of marine plastic pollution, on the textile industry, the packaging industry and the Baltic Sea region. In conclusion, the report lists potential areas of focus for future improvement.