Photo: IUCN Current Projects
Plastic Waste Free Islands
With support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), IUCN launched the Plastic Waste Free Islands project in 2019. The overarching goal of the project is to reduce plastic leakage to the ocean from six small island developing states (SIDS) - three from the Pacific and three from the Caribbean. The project also aims to repurpose waste into commercially viable products, thereby generating job opportunities and income for local communities. Key regional bodies will also develop and endorse a blueprint for looking at entire value chains, from production to disposal, and also at plastic usage and wastage in different sectors (such as tourism and fisheries). These regional bodies will be able to identify further opportunities to scale up the blueprint’s application, which can be used by any island country.
Donor: NORAD
Download the Plastic Waste Free Islands factsheet here.
Download the Plastic Waste free Islands 2020 year-end update document here.
Plastic Waste Free Islands – Mediterranean
With support from the Didier and Martine Primat Foundation, IUCN launched the Plastic Waste Free Islands project in 2019. The overarching goal of the project is to reduce plastic leakage to the ocean from two islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The project also aims to repurpose waste into commercially viable products for sale, thereby generating job opportunities and income for local communities. Key regional bodies will also develop and endorse a blueprint for looking at entire value chains, from production to disposal, and at also plastic usage and wastage in different sectors (such as tourism and fisheries). These regional bodies will also be able to identify further opportunities to scale up the blueprint’s application, which can be used by any island country.
Donor: PRIMAT Foundation
Marine Plastics and Coastal Communities - MARPLASTICCs
In late 2017, with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), IUCN launched an initiative on marine plastics and coastal communities in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific regions. The overall goal of this three-year initiative is that governments and regional bodies within the Eastern and Southern Africa and the Asia regions promote, enact and enforce legislation and other effective measures that contain and reduce marine plastic pollution. To do so, IUCN will invest efforts in equipping governments, industry and society in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Asia regions with knowledge, capacity, policy options and plans of action to control plastic pollution.
Donor: Swedish International Development Agency
Download the MARPLASTICCs factsheet here.
PlastiMed
In 2017, IUCN engaged in new efforts to close the plastic tap in the Mediterranean Sea. This two-year project aims to advance our understanding of plastic fluxes from source to sea and help with the design of local and achievable solutions.
Donor: MAVA Foundation
PlastiMed BeMed: Closing the plastic tap
In 2018, with support from the Prince Albert II Foundation, IUCN launched an initiative aiming to improve the existing methodology, model and data to assess plastic waste and leakages, pathways and sinks by combining modelling and field approaches in the Mediterranean Sea, with a special focus part of the project on North African countries.
Donor: Prince Albert II Foundation
Tackling marine plastics in Thailand: from community-based actions to policies (Phase 1)
With the support of the Coca-Cola Foundation, the project’s Phase 1 (2018 – 2019) aims to raise transformative awareness and change people’s behaviour towards solid waste management in key strategic locations in Thailand. The end goal is to significantly reduce marine plastic pollution and catalyse key changes in local and national plastic waste management policies.
Donor: Coca-Cola Foundation
Baltic Solutions to Plastic Pollution
With the support of the Swedish Postcode Foundation, the Global Marine and Polar Programme (GMPP) endeavours to demonstrate the impacts of plastic pollution in the Baltic region on climate change, biodiversity and food safety. GMPP has brought together a network of scientists to conduct desk and field research and laboratory experiments, and to provide sound scientific evidence of the negative environmental and social impacts of plastic pollution in the region. Based on this evidence, and together with leading regional experts and grassroots organisations, GMPP will then investigate policy-leveraging mechanisms to provide entry points for recommendations.
Donor: Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation
PlastiCoco
With support from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the PlastiCoco project aims to produce a report on the status of marine plastic pollution in Tanzania and support a report covering this issue for the region of Eastern and Southern Africa.
The project, which started in 2018 and will end in 2021, also aims to produce several knowledge products, including a national report on Plastic Pollution Hotspotting and Shaping Action, and three circular economy case studies which will be shared as part of the marine category of the IUCN Panorama case study database. The knowledge products will be presented and distributed at relevant fora in February 2021 to national and regional stakeholders in Tanzania and Eastern and Southern Africa and will be used to help guide marine plastic pollution policy decision-making at local, national and regional levels.
Former Projects
Azorlit - Establishing a Baseline on Marine Litter in the Azores
In the Azores archipelago, there is an urgent need for a comprehensive understanding of marine plastic pollution so that adequate management measures can be taken. The “Azorlit - Establishing a Baseline on Marine Litter in the Azores” project was conceived to fill this gap and address fundamental questions regarding this growing environmental problem. The goals of the project were to document the abundance and composition of litter on the coastline and the seafloor and to quantify the level of plastic ingestion in select marine organisms. Additionally, the project aimed to provide assistance to a local NGO, The Azores Sea Observatory (OMA), through marine litter outreach activities, focusing particularly on children and teenagers.
Donors: Gallifrey Foundation, University of Azores or Observatório do Mar dos Açores, Instituto do Mar, Marine and Enviromental Sciences Centre, Government of the Azores
More information:
Photo: IUCN Pham, C.K.; Dâmaso, C.; Frias, J.; Rodríguez, Y.; Carriço, R.; Ríos, N., Cruz, M.J (2016). Azorlit - Establishing a baseline for marine litter in the Azores: Final technical report. Horta, Faial, Portugal. IMAR-MARE, Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas da Universidade dos Açores: 119 pp.
Frias, João, Carriço, Rita & Rodriguez, Y & Ríos, Noelia & Garcia, S & Pham, Christopher (2017). Marine Litter Accumulation in the Azorean Archipelago: Azorlit Preliminary Data. Available under request on ResearchGate.
Photo: Elsevier Marine Pollution Bulletin
Phama, C.K., Rodrigueza, A.D., et al., Plastic ingestion in oceanic-stage loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) off the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, Marine Pollution Bulletin. Elsevier: in press.
R4W Odyssey 2015
The Race for Water Odyssey (R4WO) expedition set off from France in 2015 to reach the beaches of islands located in the ocean's five vortexes of trash, in order to conduct the first global assessment of plastic pollution in oceans and highlight its consequences on human populations.
More information: http://www.raceforwater.com/race_for_water_odyssey/goals
Donors: Race For Water Foundation, UN Environment
Monaco Stakeholder Platform
In 2015, IUCN’S Global Marine and Polar Programme (GMPP) convened relevant stakeholders to design and implement long-term solutions to the growing problem of plastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. This meeting in Monaco encouraged participants to identify key priority areas for short-term and long-term action.
See IUCN's Framework for Action.
Future Projects
A range of new proposals are currently in motion. IUCN intends to extend the geographical scope of its work to the Arctic region, West Africa and the Western Indian Ocean (Source to Sea).
