Marine debris, according to the report conducted by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is defined as “any persistent, manufactured or processed solid material discarded, disposed of or abandoned in the marine and coastal environment.” As the development of globalization and linear production in factories, the problem of marine debris has grown to global scale, and pose serious threat on different aspects of human society, including economy, tourism, the balance of ecosystem, sustainability of fishing resources and human health.
It has been estimated that about 80 per cent of marine debris enters the oceans comes from land. There are different material types of marine debris, with plastics being the major constituent. Microplastics, which easily attracts toxic chemicals such as POPs, may consume by marine lives and eventually affect human health through food chain.
How to regulate land-based debris before it goes into ocean? How to clean up the ocean for our next generation? How to improve the production of factories in order to decrease the amount of debris from the origin? Finding answers to these questions would be the goal of this committee.