Action 41: Best practice to prevent litter entering into water systems
Action Title: Exchange experience on best practice to prevent litter entering into water systems and highlight these to River or River basin Commissions.
Lead Party(ies): Netherlands and Germany with the assistance of Belgium
What is the issue?
One of the major pathways for litter to enter the marine environment is via terrestrial waterways, i.e., rivers and other tributaries. Although information about the amount of litter being transported through rivers into the sea is limited, initial estimations suggest that globally, between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the ocean every year. Little is known about the pathways and sources and transport mechanisms for litter within rivers, which varies greatly, depending on factors such as the catchment area, and rainfall.
What has OSPAR Done?
OSPAR has developed four outputs to support the implementation this action: an inventory of knowledge and actions on riverine litter (2016); a European Conference on Plastics in Freshwater Environments (2016); a work session in 2017 on riverine and marine litter; and a workshop in 2019 on monitoring methods. In addition, several OSPAR countries have been working nationally on the issue of riverine litter.
Final outputs and published reports
ACTION COMPLETED
An inventory of knowledge and actions concerning riverine litter was published in 2016.
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A follow up workshop was organised in 2019 to discuss monitoring methods relative to the input of riverine litter into the sea. Minutes of the Workshop on Riverine Litter, Paris, 4-5 of June & Information related to projects Workshop Riverine Litter, Paris, 4-5 of June
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