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Can we Solve Marine Pollution?

World Bank

By IW:LEARN

December 6^th, 2018

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is famous for saying that pollution coupled with human greed and stupidity are the biggest threats to humankind.

He was right.

Air, land, and water pollution caused nine million premature deaths in 2015, 16% of all deaths worldwide. The economic, environmental, and health impacts of dirty water, such as pathogens, dead-zones, trapped marine life, bleached coral reefs, and fish containing microplastics – cost us trillions of dollars every year.

And the problem is only growing bigger.

However, scientists and entrepreneurs claim there are technological solutions and economic incentives to clean up our act. This is also a message in a recent report entitled Solving Marine Pollution, which collects and examines concrete solution models from the GEF and its partners for three types of marine pollution originating on land: wastewater, agricultural runoff, and marine litter.

The solutions for wastewater range from elimination and reduction of wastewater flows through mechanical, chemical, and biological wastewater treatment systems, coupled with legal and financial incentives.

The solutions for agricultural runoff focus on practices of reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the form of animal manure, inefficient nutrient application, bad irrigation practices, and soil erosion.

The solutions of solid waste, particularly plastics, are plenty, and the report focuses on prevention which is arguably mainly a regulatory issue, and treatment, which is an opportunity for the private sector with the right investments across the plastics value chain, across asset classes, and with different time horizons.

Scientists and entrepreneurs are right - solutions are out there. The question is whether we can build the political will to implement them and create the economic incentives for the private sector to innovate.