Policy Review: How to Get Clear, Blue, Plastic-Free Seas

of which is used as material feedstock and half as fuel for the production process (BP 2015; Hopewell, Dvorak, and Kosior 2009; Plastics Europe 2015). This is equivalent to the oil consumption of the global aviation sector (EMAF 2016). If the current strong growth of plastics continues as business as usual, the plastics sector will account for 20 percent of total oil consumption by 2050.11

POLICY REVIEW: HOW TO GET CLEAR, BLUE, PLASTIC-FREE SEAS

This section discusses some of the main steps toward “blueing” the Middle East and North Africa region’s seas and making them free of marine plastics while also considering the differences between economies.

First, the “Priority Recommendations” section addresses how plastic pollution of the region’s seas exemplifies the damages that a traditional linear economy causes to environments and their inhabitants and economies. This part of the report recommends transforming the life cycle of plastics through a circular-economy approach that will preserve environmental resources, improve residents’ well-being, and advance the region’s economies. The recommendations presented here can be implemented while the region’s economies make the necessary investments to obtain country-specific data and evidence to combat plastic pollution—most importantly, identifying sources of marine-plastic pollution by location and economic sector. Although a wealth of information about plastic pollution exists at the global level, including for the Mediterranean, local source information on marine plastics is critically missing. Such information is key for designing effective policy measures to achieve a circular-economy approach that will synergistically benefit environments, residents’ health, and their economies.

Second, a section on “The Sources of Marine Plastics” discusses the limited regional information currently available on sectors, types of plastics, hot spot locations, and leakage points. It also briefly discusses the global literature on the main sources of leakage, then summarizes the recent work of some Middle East and North Africa economies to identify hot spots.

Third, the “Comprehensive Policy Options” section reviews the full range of policies to stem the region’s plastic-pollution wave. It discusses the principles of a circular economy and presents examples of how both private sector and public sector actors can tackle some of these issues to improve the circularity of plastics while transforming the region’s economy and waste management.

Priority Recommendations: Actions to Stem the Plastic Tide

Reducing marine-plastic pollution requires (a) comprehensive solutions along the plastic life cycle that are (b) linked to a circular-economy approach and (c) tailored to each country’s specific context and needs. The building blocks of this integrated approach are a set of components commonly known as the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle.

The 3 R’s of a Circular Economy

Reduce. New ways to reduce the use (and thereby the manufacture) of plastic might include, for example, incentivizing the use (and thereby the manufacture) of reusable rather than SUP food-service-related materials such as plastic bags, cups, dishes, knives, forks, and spoons. These new ways must take into account that it is currently much easier and cheaper for consumers and manufacturers to see such products as single-use throwaways. Governmental entities must create appropriate incentives and corresponding disincentives to change such throwaway-oriented consumer and producer behaviors to limit the current—and future— harms of plastic pollution and achieve the environmental, public health, and economic benefits of a circular-economy approach.

Reuse. New approaches are needed to foster the reuse of plastic products by changing consumer and producer behaviors. As with reducing the use of plastics, increasing the reuse of plastics requires government incentives and disincentives to foster circular-economy approaches that benefit the entire spectrum of individuals, communities, private enterprises, and government programs. To that end, it is important to redirect the financial resources that stakeholders now pay for dealing with the consequences of plastic pollution, enabling them instead to benefit from a circular-economy approach to the use of plastics.

Recycle. New methods for recycling plastic products can help ensure that nonreplaceable natural resources currently used in the manufacture of virgin plastics can be saved for more essential uses. The use of natural resources for the extensive manufacture of virgin plastics is not an essential use, because recycled plastics can serve that same purpose. Furthermore, recycling reduces the stream of waste that imposes

• Direct costs (for operating and expanding dump sites);

• Indirect social costs (for health care to treat air-pollution-related diseases, since dump sites in the Middle East and North Africa are often openly burning (both intentionally and by accident), which produces airborne toxic particles);

• Costs incurred by fishers and port operators from macroplastics damage; • Demonstrated health impacts on humans from ingesting the microplastics in contaminated fish; and • Forgone economic benefits (when tourists avoid plastic-polluted beaches and other coastal areas). All of those costs would be dramatically reduced if not eliminated by a circular-economy approach to the use of plastic.

Priority Steps toward Achieving a Circular Economy

In parallel with the 3 R’s of a circular-economy approach to plastic pollution of the region’s seas, governmental entities must continue and enhance cleanup methods to restore ecosystems affected by high levels of plastic pollution—including the beach areas vital to Middle East and North Africa economies’ income from international and intranational tourists. Essential to such restoration is the upgrading of SWM policies, practices, and facilities.

Although pollution prevention is preferable to pollution remediation, the reality is that it will take time for the region’s economies to shift to a circular-economy approach regarding the use of plastics. Moreover, the leakage of plastics and other pollutants from poorly maintained dump sites poses substantial current threats to residents’ health, to local and national economies, and to environmental resources. Dump-site leakage of pollutants contributes to residents’ morbidity and mortality, damages local and national economies, and spoils—in some cases, irretrievably— the region’s natural resources. Piecemeal approaches will at best yield fragmentary and partial solutions. The only comprehensive solution to plastic pollution of the Middle East and North Africa’s seas and coastal areas is a circular-economy approach to the use of plastics.

For a 3 R’s approach of reduce, reuse, and recycle—along with appropriate SWM (including cleanups) of plastics not amenable to reuse or recycling—to work, government entities (in cooperation with academia, nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], and the private sector) must raise public awareness about the negative impacts of plastic pollution on their health, their family members' health, and on the economy. Meanwhile, governments must support those residents and enterprises that experience financial challenges in the transition to a circular-economy approach, while also continuing to advance the circular economy’s comprehensive overall benefits. The priority policy recommendations below are divided into five main categories; however, all of them are interdependent. Table 4.1 summarizes these priority recommendations.