TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

ASEAN leaders to sign commitment against marine debris

Ban the trash: Greenpeace activists protest in front of the Foreign Ministry ahead of the 34th ASEAN summit in Bangkok on Thursday

Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, June 21, 2019

Share This Article

Change Size

ASEAN leaders to sign commitment against marine debris

B

an the trash: Greenpeace activists protest in front of the Foreign Ministry ahead of the 34th ASEAN summit in Bangkok on Thursday.(Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun)

ASEAN leaders are set to sign a commitment to combat marine debris later this week, just as the world’s largest contributors to marine waste and destinations for trash struggle to clean up their act.

The commitment, to be officially dubbed the Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Region, is expected to be signed by the region’s leaders on Sunday as part of the 34th ASEAN Summit proceedings in Bangkok.

First initiated by current ASEAN chair Thailand, the declaration will be one of 16 expected outcome documents to be signed during the high-level meeting.

“The declaration consists of an action framework from which we hope that all countries [in ASEAN] can implement the ‘reuse, reduce, recycle’ principles,” said the Foreign Ministry’s director general for ASEAN cooperation, Jose Tavares, during a press briefing this week.

The draft declaration had been discussed by ASEAN foreign ministers in a meeting earlier this year, in which they exchanged views and practices on efforts to deal with trash in the ocean.

The meeting resulted in the vaunted ASEAN Framework of Action on Marine Debris, which covers four priority areas: policy support and planning; research, innovation and capacity building; public awareness, education and outreach; and private sector engagement.

The framework aims to better educate people in the region about efforts to prevent dumping at sea by involving civil society organizations, Jose said. However, it stopped short of promoting an ASEAN-wide standard approach to the problem, with the official saying that states’ policies for waste, particularly marine debris, differ greatly.

Southeast Asia is in dire need of policies to respond to environmental damage from marine debris, amid concerns that countries in the region are contributing to the bulk of the world’s waste problem.

In 2015, environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment reported that Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand — along with China — were responsible for up to 60 percent of plastic waste that seeps into the world’s oceans, killing marine life and entering the human food chain.

Greenpeace said in its recent “No Space for Waste” campaign that the region had seen plastic waste imports grew by 171 percent between 2016 and 2018, equal to more than 2 million tons of plastic waste.

Indonesia has since responded by drafting a National Marine Debris Action Plan in which it commits to reducing plastic waste by 70 percent by 2025.

Lately, the waste issue has come under increasing scrutiny in several Southeast Asian nations, particularly the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, after it emerged in a media frenzy that they had become dumping grounds for the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom, which export their waste into the region.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia urged an immediate ban on all imports of plastic waste, with the advocacy group saying in a statement that “ASEAN leaders [should] put this issue on the agenda during their summits this year”.

Countries have been fighting back by returning containers of rubbish to Western nations, which otherwise have been taking leading roles in promoting global environmental sustainability.

A spokesperson for Thailand’s Foreign Ministry was quoted in the media as saying that Bangkok was “fully supportive” of any concerted efforts to deal with the trade in plastic waste.

Jose said on Wednesday that while marine debris was the main agenda item with regard to waste, the leaders might still discuss the issue of waste imports. (tjs)

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.