Posted on July, 27 2016

Queen Noor of Jordan posted it to her 666,000 followers, and so did popular Indonesian director and comedian Aditya Dika, who counts 437,500 followers. Their message was the same: There is #noplace4plastic in the world’s oceans today.

The catchy hashtag was the battlecry for this year’s Coral Triangle Day, marked last June 9, as organised by WWF, the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security (CTI-CFF), and www.thecoraltriangle.com. The hashtag was also used for an Instagram contest that invited ocean-loving followers to post pictures of plastic polluting the natural environment, with an accompanying one-line description on what they are doing to reduce plastic waste.

The campaign aimed to make consumers more aware of the sheer amount of waste plastic, particularly single-use plastic items, now burdening the environment and threatening marine life. The contest ran from May 18 to June 9, and reached out to followers on social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Prizes at stake, donated by generous sponsors, included a stay at Gaya Island Resort in Malaysia and at Fatboys Resort in Gizo, Solomon Islands, a dive package with Scuba Junkie in Borneo, Cressi dive gear, BYO underwater guides, and Coral Triangle coffee-table books.

The campaign reached an estimated number of over 840,000
people on Instagram, some 3.5 million
on Twitter, and over 1.5 million on Facebook, with 1,002 Instagram entries received from all over the world.

The campaign also aimed to underscore the urgent need to reduce plastic waste to protect coastal and marine environments. The long-term goal of WWF, through public-private partnerships, is to see more widespread, institutional solutions to plastic pollution, with local governments and the business sector adopting more definite regulations on plastic waste management.

The work becomes more urgent in the light of current statistics. Eight million tonnes of plastic are dumped in the ocean annually, and only five countries are responsible for 60 per cent of that rubbish, according to a study released by the Ocean Conservancy and McKinsey Center for Business and Environment.

Plastic polluters

Of the five, two—Indonesia and the Philippines, both archipelagos—are situated in the Coral Triangle, joining other major plastic polluters China, Thailand, and Vietnam.

June 9, 2016 marked the fifth celebration of Coral Triangle Day, which has successfully rallied individuals as well as organisations to focus on the Coral Triangle, the world’s centre of marine life, and how it can be protected.

Events are also held simultaneously around the region, such as beach clean-ups, mangrove replanting, sustainable seafood festivals, and youth workshops.

This year in the Philippines, WWF-Philippines organised “Reefstrokes,” which featured six leading Filipino open-water athletes doing a 10-km open-water swim in Nasugbu, Batangas. The event drew attention to the damage caused by plastic pollution and climate change to the Verde Island Passage between the provinces of Batangas and Mindoro, dubbed as the centre of marine shore fish biodiversity, home to countless marine species, and an important fishing ground.

Swimmers Ingemar Macarine, Frank Lacson, Betsy Medalla, Julian Valencia, Moi Yamoyam, and Miguel Villanueva took off on May 29 from the Pico de Loro Beach and Country Club in Nasugbu. “As a swimmer who regularly swims in open water, I am disheartened each time I encounter floating garbage,” said Macarine in a post-event interview with local newspaper the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “We swim to remind everyone that we need to act now to protect our marine resources.”

“Symbolically, the 10­km swim is a daunting task, just like protecting our marine resources,” said Joel Palma, President and Chief Executive Officer of WWF-­Philippines, in an interview with local newspaper BusinessWorld.“It’s not easy, but it can be done.”

“People's love for sports, the outdoors, and good causes proved to be a great combination,” says WWF-Philippines Communications Manager Gregg Yan on the decision to hold “Reefstrokes.” “It offered a new twist to the usual tree-planting or clean-up drives that have been conducted for decades.” 

Recycling, up-cycling, and minimal packaging

Yan acknowledges that being recognised as a top plastic polluter is a sobering reality. “As a centre of global marine biodiversity, the Philippines is a crown jewel of the Coral Triangle. Unfortunately, strips of plastic and gobs of sludge have taken a bit of the crown's lustre away. ‘Reefstrokes’ is our latest attempt to highlight the immediate need to deal with the dangers of plastic to save our life-giving coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangrove thickets. Ultimately, the solution will still be to wean humanity away from the mind-set of nonstop plastic consumption by promoting recycling, up-cycling, and minimal packaging.”

Meanwhile, in Gizo in the Solomon Islands, the slogan “No Place 4 Plastics” was bannered all over the place as WWF-Gizo and partners hosted a downtown garbage clean-up, a plastic bag-free day in markets and shops, recycling and awareness activities, a talent competition, and evening film-showings, with the theme “Stop Plastic Pollution,” to mark Coral Triangle Day last June 9.

Eighty per cent of the people living in the Coral Triangle depend on coastal resources, which are gravely threatened by plastic pollution, noted WWF-Gizo Field Project Officer Salome Topo in her opening remarks for the day’s events.

Topo and other members of the WWF-Gizo Coral Triangle Planning Team—Minnie Rafe, Dafisha Aleziru, Zelda Hilly, Jessica Rutherford, Deanne Seppy of Gizo Recycling, and Reneé Rario of the Gizo Town Council—agree that Gizo suffers from a “poor waste management system.” “The overflowing landfill for the Gizo Township and villages is currently located at the head of a mangrove, and leaches into the marine environment through the mangrove and estuary,” the team says in a statement. “With the increase in population, there is increase in waste, and this landfill continues to grow at an exceptionally fast rate. There is still no long-term solution to waste disposal, and at present all unsegregated waste—organics, plastics, household, electronic, and industrial—is dumped into this landfill.”

Furthermore, an increase in plastic pollution in the marine environment results in “more plastic compounds available for ingestion, which can lead to bioaccumulation in fish species, creating toxic fish. There are a number of health issues associated with bioaccumulation in fish, especially since the Solomon Islands people rely on fish as their main protein source.”

Among the team’s longer-term projects is the weaving of baskets and bags as alternatives to plastic. More decisive measures have to be put in place, however, the team agrees. “The government should support efforts to ban or reduce the use of plastic bags, and provide alternatives, particularly those that provide livelihood opportunities,” states the team.

Reducing and stopping the import of plastic bags into the Western Province and the Solomon Islands would also help immensely. “The next step would be to approach the Chamber of Commerce to see what steps need to be taken. We must revisit and revise the old plastic bag legislation already in place for the Western Province from 1998, which was never approved,” the team says.

Greater awareness on rules and regulations, education on recycling and waste management, opportunities for small-scale recycling programs, and even findings ways to transform plastic into much-needed fuel are other suggestions.

“All of us who are here today depend heavily on our marine resources,” said Topo during the CT Day celebration, “and I would like to urge all of us to keep our surrounding environment and the ocean clean, so that they can sustain our food as well as our income.”