KOREAN POLICY ON MARINE LITTER

by Jeong-Seok Yu

Director, Marine Conservation Division
Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Fisheries
140-2, Gye-dong Jongro-gu Seoul 110-793, Republic of Korea
jsyu@momaf.go.kr

OVERVIEW

The bottom of the sea may act as the important ecological space that is connected not only with benthic ecosystem but also the whole marine ecosystem. However, due to recent various causes such as large fishing activities in costal areas, continuous economic development, and leisure activities with improved incomes, the bottom of the sea is in a serious situation with various deposited wastes, disposed shells, and discharged contaminant deposits exceeding self-cleansing power.

The government recognized the significance of ocean wastes as new marine contaminants and prepared diverse management programs; National Science & Technology Council also designated the large six kinds of domestic marine contaminants and suggested technological approach methods; ocean wastes are designated as the most serious marine contaminants as well as marine/sediment contamination, red tide, beach damage, marine ecosystem disturbance, and marine accidents, and 'Ocean Waste Management Strategy' has been executed in full scale since 1999.

THE STATUS AND PROBLEMS OF OCEAN WASTES

Ocean wastes may be classified into fishery-caused wastes and land-caused wastes by the origin of production. Fishery-caused wastes mostly consist of fishing implements lost during fishery activities but they are also produced by disposing of damaged fishing implements when they replace the fishing implements; the fishing implements such as weirs and gill nets were significantly increased with developed catching fishery since 1970's; more than 400 thousand tons of wastes are expected to be deposited in the ocean and, in case of major fishing banks and the sea areas with high density of wastes are found to have 115 thousand tons of wastes through survey.

Meanwhile, large quantity of land-caused wastes, which consist of grasses/trees, beverage containers, packing papers, and other leisure supplies, flow into seas at a time through rivers and streams during heavy rains and, at the time of attack by Rusa in 2002, 170 thousand tons of flood wastes flew in the ocean and contaminated the whole seaside of the country as well as islands. According the data of survey on the cities and provinces which was carried out in 2005, most of them consist of plastics that were considered to be originated from the land.

Table 1. Yearly quantities of ocean wastes produced

Although the official survey on the damage with such ocean wastes is domestically poor, it was found that wastes destroys the places for inhabitation and spawning of fish resources and disposed fishery implements form the graves of fishes resulting in reduction of fish resources (see Fig. 1). Also, disposed fish nets are wound on the screws of sailing vessels resulting in vessel accidents and the various wastes disposed on every place of the seaside significantly affect the costal scenery (see Fig. 2).

The damage on marine resources is expressed as the apparent reducing trend of costal fishes but there is no detailed report due to the difficulty in distinguishing thisdamage from the causes such as deterioration of stream water or temperature elevation. In terms of the damage on marine ecosystem, damage on sea birds is partially presented but, as there are few inhabitations of marine mammals in domestic coasts, the damage on them is rarely reported.

Fig. 1. Giant spider crabs and blue crabs dead in the disposed fish nets in the sea
(Left : Wooljin giant spider crab bank in July ’03 / right : Yeonpyeongdo blue crab bank in August ’04)

Fig. 2. The status of wastes disposed at the seaside (Yuldo, Haenam-gun, Jeonnam, June ’04)

As shown above, ocean wastes destroying marine ecosystem are to be controlled by city or provincial governments in case of costal areas within 12 miles to inner direction from territorial waters but positive measures are poor due to the main entities for collection and management of disposed fishery instruments and insufficient budgets.

Also, as the processing of waste fishery instruments produced during fishery activities requires app. 300 thousand won of cost per ton, they are frequently disposed on the seaside or in the sea without permission.

EXECUTION OF OCEAN WASTE COLLECTION

Since the first execution of ocean waste collection project was executed in 1999, 47 thousand tons of deposited wastes were collected form 117 harbors or fishing ports of the country until 2003. From 2004, ocean waste collection project was executed focused on the fishing ports in the major sea areas of costs in the country and, in 2005, the wastes disposed in islands, damp (beach) protection zones, and the seaside were also concurrently collected.

Table 2. Performance of collection/processing of ocean wastes

Meanwhile, ocean waste purchase project has been executed by letting fishers carry disposed fishery implements to fishing ports which are pulled in during operation rather than disposing in the sea, at low expenses with the result that ocean waste are collected and the recognition on the damage with wastes are converted.

This system was accepted by the institutions when government-level measures are asked with emphasizing the examples that disposed wastes pulled in during operation are disposed in the sea again because fishers could not process them although they carried them to the fishing ports at the start of this government.

This project was executed in 2003 with the fishing boats of adjoining seas as models with 100% support by national expenditures and, since 2004, it has been being executed as a supportive project (80% of national expenditures and 20% of local autonomous entities' expenses) with joint sharing of project expenses with local autonomous entities is produces the effect that additional incomes are produced to fishers and government expenditures are saved as well as collection of wastes because the damage with ocean wastes was recognized and joint participation was achieved.

FUTURE OCEAN WASTE COLLECTION STRATEGY

Basic direction

With application of EEZ in the near sea areas of Han Peninsula, the values of costal fishing banks and marine spaces have been elevated compared to the past but ocean wastes have been continuously increased with industrialization and urbanization of costal areas and huge scale of damages are given to the marine ecosystem.

In such situation, an approach with a new paradigm to meet the marine environment for recovery of the marine ecosystem is required and, as well as preparation of systemic management measures against ocean wastes, preventive and reductive points should also be considered for the passed suppression of production of ocean wastes as well as collection of them. Also, the waste processing method, which had been executed depending upon reclamation, incineration, and ocean dispose in past, should also be converted into the direction for maximization of reuse and environment friendly processing.

Ocean waste strategies executed

Continuous execution of ocean waste collection project

The project for collection of wasted deposited in the harbors and fishing ports was completed in 2003 and the project was expanded to costal/adjoining seas from 2004 but the collected quantity did not reach the produced quantity and not-collected wastes were accumulated; the project will continuously be executed with annually increased budget.

For this, development of strategies for preparation of marine environment improvement shares is needed as well as general budget and sincere participation, such as sharing of a certain portion of expenses by local autonomous entities in case of the expenses for costal areas, is also required.

Organization and operation of conferences by autonomous entities to manage the origins of waste contamination

Ocean wastes are continuously produced and the collection project, which was initiated in 1999, should be executed for a fairly long time in future but the most important strategy is the strategy to reduce production by blocking the origins of production. As the efforts to manage such land and marine caused origins by the central government have limitation, conferences should be organized by neighboring autonomous entities with joint sharing of expenses to minimize the production of wastes and strategies should be established for rapid processing of produced wastes.

To manage the disposed wastes on Han River basins, Seoul City, Incheon City, and Gyeonggi-do organized a conference and agreed in sharing yearly 28.5 billion won of expenses from 2002 to 2006; the agreement is being executed and other autonomous entities also need to make such effort. For national expansion and execution of such model case, there is a plan to support the autonomous entities, which organize conferences with priority execution of supportive projects of autonomous entities as well as positive financial supports.

Extended execution of ocean waste purchase project

To prevent the inefficient examples that fishers dispose the wastes, which are pulled-in during operation or produced during fishery activities, in the sea and the government collects them with large amount of budget, purchase system was executed since 2003 and this system will be extended every year. However, as purchase project does not meet the principle of causer and as it is not executed to support the lives of fishers, fishers should carry the wastes pulled in during operation to fish ports and a measure for joint sharing of expenses by autonomous entities and National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives etc. should be considered in the respect of the burden of processing expenses.

Continuous execution of R&D of ocean waste integrated-processing system

Since 1999, a practical collection/processing system was established with graft with marine scientific technology; waste fishery Styrofoam reducer, ocean waste pre-processing and resource system, multipurpose ocean waste collection boat, ocean waste incinerator, equipment to survey deposited fishing nets in 1,000m depth in NOWPAP Sea, and portable on-board integrated-processing system technology were developed.

It is planned to execute the strategy focused on practical use in the field for application of the outputs obtained for efficient collection/processing of ocean wastes.

Execution of the strategy for cultivation of ocean waste reuse enterprises

Through continuous studies and investment in relation to ocean wastes, the technologies for collection and processing to resources through reuse of them were developed trough private and government studies and are at the stage of practical use. Especially, the method to process the ocean wastes is rapidly turning its direction from previous incineration, reclamation, or ocean dispose to processing to resources. Synthetic resins and solid fuels are produced with use of the waste Styrofoam produced in breeding ground and the waste fishing nets deposited in costal/adjoining seas with continuous demand of them and, therefore, the ocean waste strategies, which were focused on collection and processing (incineration and reclamation), should also be focused on cultivation of waste reuse enterprises.

CONCLUSION

The discharge of various contaminants such as marine floating wastes and the wasted deposited on the bottom of sea is in a serious situation exceeding self-cleansing power by marine itself due to recent large scale fishery activities in costal seas, overall extension of industrial fields with economical development, and elevated life levels.

Although land and air contaminations arouse public opinions and improvement measures are taken because they are directly detected by us and give damages to us, however, the damage on the vast marine environment is located at blind posts with no interest by the people and the significance of it is practically overlooked.

A task should be implemented to suppress the production of ocean wastes such as waste fishery implements as well as continuous execution of collection project in future. Also, with organization of conferences by autonomous entities, joint measures should be taken and education & PR should be strengthened to cultivate the ocean waste reuse enterprises and to convert the recognition by fishers.

Also, development of environment-friendly fishery implements such as bio-decomposition weirs, materials, and nets will be the task to be performed and systemic infrastructures should be constructed to prevent the examples of secondary marine contamination with re-dispose of collected wastes through extended installation of waste fishery implementation collection places in fishing ports and islands.