Plastic Soup

The Law of the Sea

I called professor David Caron of the Law of the Sea Institute in Berkeley to make an appointment.

What I got on the line was an extraordinarily charming man with a gloomy message. It didn’t seem to make much sense to meet each other. The subject on which I wanted to interview him — legislation dealing with plastic waste in the oceans — appeared not to exist.

There are two laws dealing with marine garbage. The Dumping Convention was implemented in 1972: this forbids loading of ships with junk with the intent of dumping in the ocean. Since the Nineties — when people started to realize that there was a plastic waste problem — MARPOL (short for Marine Pollution Convention) was implemented. Since then, vessels such as cruise ships and oil tankers are also not permitted to dump the waste that they produce during their sea journey. But there remains no legislation that addresses cleaning up the oceans.

Why not? David Caron had a very simple answer to that question (an answer that I hear again and again): nobody wants to take responsibility.

When authorities are approached on the issue, they wash their hands of the matter; even when the waste is clearly from their countries. “We have told our shipping companies that their ships cannot discharge waste. Anyway, when they do that, it’s their fault, not ours. We have fulfilled our duty in informing them what they can and cannot do.”

All organizations concerned with the oceans, and all agreements entered upon, deal with the future: with preventing problems. But no one looks back. Nobody asks how to solve the existing problems.

According to David Caron, the only organization that could do anything is UNEP (United Nations Environment Program). But he also has grave doubts about that. They (UNEP) are so busy dealing with climate change that they do not have the time to find a solution for ocean waste.

Professor Caron is convinced that there isn’t any international organization that will take the initiative to clean up the oceans. He has never even heard of the subject ever being discussed. There is only one solution: one country will need to take the lead and just start, and then we hope that more will follow.

What are we waiting for?

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