Jakarta, 8 November 2022: ERIA, in collaboration with the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) , co-hosted the hybrid third meeting of ERIA’s Experts Working Group on Marine Plastic Debris, to follow-up on recommendations from the previous meetings.
The recommendations were: identifying data availability and gaps in the plastic value chain in ASEAN Member States (AMS), understanding plastic pollution trends during the COVID-19 pandemic, exchanging views on the increase of plastic pollution, and gathering knowledge from experts from different backgrounds to formulate relevant recommendations. The meeting also discussed the working group's policy-relevant outputs for 2023.
Dr Vong Sok, Head of the ASEAN Secretariat Environment Division and Assistant Director of Sustainable Development Directorate, in his opening remarks expressed his encouragement and support for the working group, which he regards as fundamental to building new insights and practical solutions for the marine plastic issue.
‘Digital technology could be put to full use and the ASEAN Secretariat will continue to support the process to create synergistic actions,’ he said.
Ms Junko Nishikawa, Director for Sustainable Infrastructure, Office of Director for International Cooperation for Transition to Decarbonisation and Sustainable Infrastructure, at Japan's Ministry of the Environment, highlighted the ministry’s intention to support data-driven policy making in the region. While the knowledge of each expert from the working group is valuable in its own right, Ms Nishikawa stressed that by bringing together researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds, the platform can provide cross-disciplinary collaboration for the benefit of the region.
Progress Report
Dr Vivek Anand Asokan, IGES Policy Researcher, said that plastic pollution in developing countries faces several challenges, such as lack of coordination, knowledge, data, infrastructure and formalisation. Multi-stakeholder partnership is a solution to addressing the uncertain and complex issue of plastic pollution, so the World Economic Forum initiated the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) as a central platform to create tangible actions against plastic pollution.
On a smaller scale, GPAP has the National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP), a national-level platform which works with the national government and partners. NPAP has so far been run in Ghana, Indonesia, and Viet Nam.
In his closing remarks, Dr Asokan laid out several important hurdles to be overcome to effectively tackle marine plastics, including the involvement of local governments and the informal sector, as well as financial support.
Ms Natalie Harms from the COBSEA Secretariat delivered a presentation on the implementation of the COBSEA Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter. Ms Harms said COBSEA is developing the Regional Node of the Global Partnership on Marine Litter with a web platform including a plastic pollution research database. She expressed hope this web platform can be linked to the ongoing work of ERIA’s Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris (the Centre) in the same vein. COBSEA and ERIA should also create a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to expand knowledge in the region and avoid any work duplication.
Dr Guilberto Borongan, Director at the Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT RRC.AP), gave a progress report on AIT’s research on the development of technical guidelines for plastics and resin pellets leakage. Dr Borongan said the research is being conducted in six ASEAN cities: Ha Noi, Iloilo, Manila, Nonthaburi, Pattaya, and Vientiane, and he is leading a scoping exercise, data collection, and analytical work to understand the architecture of the plastic waste and recycling landscape in the target cities.
Dr Youna Lyons, Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore's Centre for International Law, then gave a presentation on how she and her team have developed a database consisting of 700 articles that focus on marine plastics. Ultimately, she aims to provide a source of integrated knowledge on marine plastic debris research that should fit into COBSEA's ongoing work and the ASEAN Action Plan to strengthen the regional knowledge network.
Dr Mongtoeun Yim, Deputy Head, Environmental Science Department, Royal University of Phnom Penh, continued the session, highlighting the severe state of plastic pollution in Cambodia.
‘All kinds of waste are mixed and disposed to the landfill without precautions and treatments,’ he said.
Cambodia is implementing an approach to reduce and recycle plastic waste through the development of policies and regulations, promotion of awareness raising, and stakeholder engagement to promote the Replace, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (4R) programme, he said.
Dr Vu Dinh Heiu, Deputy Director of the Viet Nam Institute of Seas and Islands (VISI), shared Viet Nam’s experiences in addressing marine plastics. His presentation showed how the country is using five policy instruments to implement the National Action Plan by 2030. The five instruments are command-control tools, economic instruments, technical tools, communication and education tools, and plastic life cycle policy.
Dr Muhammad Reza Cordova, Researcher at the Research Centre for Oceanography, Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), presented his recent studies on marine microplastics in the country. He explained how the limitation of available expertise, compounded by divergence in terms of terminology, guidelines, reporting tools, and methods employed, poses challenges in microplastic monitoring.
‘Harmonisation of monitoring methods on a global level will be key to successful data collection and analysis,’ he said.
Mr Michikazu Kojima, ERIA Senior Advisor, proposed the most suitable indicators to assess plastic pollution in the ASEAN region, dividing them into five main categories: production/consumption, recycling/disposal, leakage to the environment, impact on the ecosystem, and collection from the environment. He invited input from the experts and requested they keep sharing their feedback to fine-tune the indicators. Mr Kojima said he hoped the indicators could be further developed to formulate a policy brief to be shared at the regional level.
Dr Chen Liu, IGES Research Manager, delivered a presentation on her ongoing research on the increase of single-use plastics and food waste caused by COVID-19. Her research found the plastic waste from municipal solid waste generation in Bangkok had increased from around 2 tons per day to 3.4 tons per day. This finding was similar to the situation in Ha Noi, where the use of single-use plastic at the household level also increased during the pandemic.
Dr Atsushi Watabe, IGES Programme Director, shared the progress of the application of the behavioural insights project for single-use plastic reduction in ASEAN+3 cities. The project aims to understand effective behavioural insights which can nudge citizen decision-making toward more sustainable choices. He said an open call for project partners will be published soon, and restaurants, schools, community centres, and tourist sites will be targeted as survey sites. The project will continue until the end of 2023.
Dr Yasuhiko Hotta, IGES Programme Director, Sustainable Consumption and Production, said the working group should provide recommendations for the AMS in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meeting, which is expected to be held next year, referencing the UNEA 5.2 resolution (Nairobi, Kenya March 2022) which agreed to establish an internationally legal binding instrument by 2024 to end plastic pollution. In response, Mr Michikazu Kojima said the working group provides viewpoints on unique regional challenges and proposes topics that should be covered in the new treaty.
Dr Hotta said the OECD, in collaboration with IGES and ERIA, is to work on a Plastic Outlook Report focusing on the Asian region. The Asian version of the OECD’s Global Plastics Outlook will contain a strong data-based explanation of the status quo, projections of plastic production and consumption patterns in the future, and possible policy approaches for a transition to circular approaches. The report, which is expected to be published by 2024, will be presented to the ASEAN Secretariat as a flagship policy recommendation for the region.
‘We welcome the experts to engage in the development of this report by contributing with your knowledge and expertise,’ he said.
Communication Desk
Jakarta, 8 November 2022: ERIA, in collaboration with the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) , co-hosted the hybrid third meeting of ERIA’s Experts Working Group on Marine Plastic Debris, to follow-up on recommendations from the previous meetings.
The recommendations were: identifying data availability and gaps in the plastic value chain in ASEAN Member States (AMS), understanding plastic pollution trends during the COVID-19 pandemic, exchanging views on the increase of plastic pollution, and gathering knowledge from experts from different backgrounds to formulate relevant recommendations. The meeting also discussed the working group's policy-relevant outputs for 2023.
Dr Vong Sok, Head of the ASEAN Secretariat Environment Division and Assistant Director of Sustainable Development Directorate, in his opening remarks expressed his encouragement and support for the working group, which he regards as fundamental to building new insights and practical solutions for the marine plastic issue.
‘Digital technology could be put to full use and the ASEAN Secretariat will continue to support the process to create synergistic actions,’ he said.
Ms Junko Nishikawa, Director for Sustainable Infrastructure, Office of Director for International Cooperation for Transition to Decarbonisation and Sustainable Infrastructure, at Japan's Ministry of the Environment, highlighted the ministry’s intention to support data-driven policy making in the region. While the knowledge of each expert from the working group is valuable in its own right, Ms Nishikawa stressed that by bringing together researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds, the platform can provide cross-disciplinary collaboration for the benefit of the region.
Progress Report
Dr Vivek Anand Asokan, IGES Policy Researcher, said that plastic pollution in developing countries faces several challenges, such as lack of coordination, knowledge, data, infrastructure and formalisation. Multi-stakeholder partnership is a solution to addressing the uncertain and complex issue of plastic pollution, so the World Economic Forum initiated the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) as a central platform to create tangible actions against plastic pollution.
On a smaller scale, GPAP has the National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP), a national-level platform which works with the national government and partners. NPAP has so far been run in Ghana, Indonesia, and Viet Nam.
In his closing remarks, Dr Asokan laid out several important hurdles to be overcome to effectively tackle marine plastics, including the involvement of local governments and the informal sector, as well as financial support.
Ms Natalie Harms from the COBSEA Secretariat delivered a presentation on the implementation of the COBSEA Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter. Ms Harms said COBSEA is developing the Regional Node of the Global Partnership on Marine Litter with a web platform including a plastic pollution research database. She expressed hope this web platform can be linked to the ongoing work of ERIA’s Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris (the Centre) in the same vein. COBSEA and ERIA should also create a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to expand knowledge in the region and avoid any work duplication.
Dr Guilberto Borongan, Director at the Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT RRC.AP), gave a progress report on AIT’s research on the development of technical guidelines for plastics and resin pellets leakage. Dr Borongan said the research is being conducted in six ASEAN cities: Ha Noi, Iloilo, Manila, Nonthaburi, Pattaya, and Vientiane, and he is leading a scoping exercise, data collection, and analytical work to understand the architecture of the plastic waste and recycling landscape in the target cities.
Dr Youna Lyons, Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore's Centre for International Law, then gave a presentation on how she and her team have developed a database consisting of 700 articles that focus on marine plastics. Ultimately, she aims to provide a source of integrated knowledge on marine plastic debris research that should fit into COBSEA's ongoing work and the ASEAN Action Plan to strengthen the regional knowledge network.
Dr Mongtoeun Yim, Deputy Head, Environmental Science Department, Royal University of Phnom Penh, continued the session, highlighting the severe state of plastic pollution in Cambodia.
‘All kinds of waste are mixed and disposed to the landfill without precautions and treatments,’ he said.
Cambodia is implementing an approach to reduce and recycle plastic waste through the development of policies and regulations, promotion of awareness raising, and stakeholder engagement to promote the Replace, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (4R) programme, he said.
Dr Vu Dinh Heiu, Deputy Director of the Viet Nam Institute of Seas and Islands (VISI), shared Viet Nam’s experiences in addressing marine plastics. His presentation showed how the country is using five policy instruments to implement the National Action Plan by 2030. The five instruments are command-control tools, economic instruments, technical tools, communication and education tools, and plastic life cycle policy.
Dr Muhammad Reza Cordova, Researcher at the Research Centre for Oceanography, Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), presented his recent studies on marine microplastics in the country. He explained how the limitation of available expertise, compounded by divergence in terms of terminology, guidelines, reporting tools, and methods employed, poses challenges in microplastic monitoring.
‘Harmonisation of monitoring methods on a global level will be key to successful data collection and analysis,’ he said.
Mr Michikazu Kojima, ERIA Senior Advisor, proposed the most suitable indicators to assess plastic pollution in the ASEAN region, dividing them into five main categories: production/consumption, recycling/disposal, leakage to the environment, impact on the ecosystem, and collection from the environment. He invited input from the experts and requested they keep sharing their feedback to fine-tune the indicators. Mr Kojima said he hoped the indicators could be further developed to formulate a policy brief to be shared at the regional level.
Dr Chen Liu, IGES Research Manager, delivered a presentation on her ongoing research on the increase of single-use plastics and food waste caused by COVID-19. Her research found the plastic waste from municipal solid waste generation in Bangkok had increased from around 2 tons per day to 3.4 tons per day. This finding was similar to the situation in Ha Noi, where the use of single-use plastic at the household level also increased during the pandemic.
Dr Atsushi Watabe, IGES Programme Director, shared the progress of the application of the behavioural insights project for single-use plastic reduction in ASEAN+3 cities. The project aims to understand effective behavioural insights which can nudge citizen decision-making toward more sustainable choices. He said an open call for project partners will be published soon, and restaurants, schools, community centres, and tourist sites will be targeted as survey sites. The project will continue until the end of 2023.
Dr Yasuhiko Hotta, IGES Programme Director, Sustainable Consumption and Production, said the working group should provide recommendations for the AMS in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meeting, which is expected to be held next year, referencing the UNEA 5.2 resolution (Nairobi, Kenya March 2022) which agreed to establish an internationally legal binding instrument by 2024 to end plastic pollution. In response, Mr Michikazu Kojima said the working group provides viewpoints on unique regional challenges and proposes topics that should be covered in the new treaty.
Dr Hotta said the OECD, in collaboration with IGES and ERIA, is to work on a Plastic Outlook Report focusing on the Asian region. The Asian version of the OECD’s Global Plastics Outlook will contain a strong data-based explanation of the status quo, projections of plastic production and consumption patterns in the future, and possible policy approaches for a transition to circular approaches. The report, which is expected to be published by 2024, will be presented to the ASEAN Secretariat as a flagship policy recommendation for the region.
‘We welcome the experts to engage in the development of this report by contributing with your knowledge and expertise,’ he said.
Communication Desk
