Map of the Week - Marine Litter
Every year, the European Commission Directorate-General for Environment (DG Environment) organizes the EU Green Week conference. This year, the conference is taking place from 30 May to 5 June 2022. EU Green Week is Europe’s biggest annual event on environmental policy, allowing Europeans to debate European environmental policy and actions with policymakers, leading environmentalists and stakeholders from Europe and beyond. The theme of this year’s event is ‘EU Green Deal – Make It Real’. The sessions on day 2 of the conference, i.e. 31 May, put three important aspects of green transformation in the spotlight: the circular economy, biodiversity and zero pollution. All around Europe and beyond, partner events are being organized in the spirit of the conference. Find out in the list of Partner Events whether events are organised in your country as well.
This week’s Map of the Week shows the different types of marine litter collected by fish trawl. Every year, millions of tonnes of litter are generated through a variety of human activities and much of this ends up in our oceans, posing environmental, economic and public health problems. It is not surprising that marine litter is identified as one of the fastest growing threats to the health of the world’s Ocean, the diverse marine life it supports and, ultimately, to humans consuming food from the ocean. This map details the percentage of litter divided into distinct categories (glass, textile, metal, polymer, etc.). As part of its plastics strategy, the EU adopted Directive 2019/904 to restrict the use of several disposable plastic products and fishing gear. In addition, the EU also adopted a directive (2019/883) on port reception facilities for the delivery of waste from ships.
Wish to know more about seabed litter?
- Zoom in on the map to discover the types of seabed litter found in the seas near your country.
- Did you know that marine litter is one of the eleven qualitative descriptors which describe what the environment will look like when Good Environmental Status (GES) has been achieved[1]? GES is the main goal of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive[2].
The data in this map are provided by EMODnet.