After the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, an Internet user uploaded a video online showing that Tainan’s “Gold Coast” was covered with debris from fireworks and firecrackers. Coastal areas are the best places for outdoor leisure activities and sightseeing, but they are often left flooded with trash.
On Oct. 5, an environmental group released the results of their debris assessment of the Tamsui River (淡水河), including tirbutaries, Taiwan’s first large-scale study of river waste distribution. The study found 180,000 liters of waste along 242km of riverbank, and the three major types were plastic bags, plastic bottles and disposable utensils.
As the results are in line with the figures from past beach cleaning events, it is clear that waste and debris reaches the sea through rivers.
Marine debris has become a hot topic of debate worldwide in the past few years.
When the Executive Yuan proposed a series of “Salute to the Seas” policies late last year, it stressed that Taiwan should keep every inch of its coastline clean.
Unfortunately, Taiwanese have paid little attention to the fact that rivers are a source of marine debris. Just like Taiwan, Japan has many rivers, so Taiwanese would do well to learn from the Japanese example.
In 2002, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Japan’s Yamagata Prefecture conducted a “rapid assessment” of debris in the Mogami River, the longest in the prefecture, and then published a map of debris hotspots. The assessment spurred local residents to take part in voluntary river patrols, local schools to teach their students not to litter and local governments to clean up river debris.
Another assessment three years later showed that the number of debris hotspots had been reduced by 91 percent, from 350 to 33. This inspired the Japanese government to conduct rapid assessments of beach debris using the same technique nationwide.
We once participated in a beach debris rapid assessment and realized that the distribution of debris was extremely uneven, as 50 percent was concentrated on 10 percent of all beaches.
During my participation in the Tamsui River assessment, a similar problem was found, as 90 percent of the debris was concentrated on 9 percent of the riverbank.
Nearly 60 percent of this debris consisted of plastic bags. As we moved upstream, we found more lunch boxes, plastic cups, cigarette butts and boxes. As most of the items were intact, this indicated that they might have been generated by shore activities or in the surrounding communities.
Moreover, some hidden places along the riverside were hotspots for illegal dumping, including bags of household garbage, furniture and home decorations, and construction waste. When heavy rains or floods hit, this waste would be washed into the sea.
Looking to Japan’s example, conducting river debris assessments can not only reduce beach debris at the source, it also inspires local residents with a sense of honor to patrol and clean the riversides. Such assessments could even encourage local companies to adopt rivers.
River debris might seem to be a simple problem, but the responsibilities of the authorities and legal regulations are tangled and complex. In terms of the Tamsui River, a cross-departmental river basin management committee was set up nine years ago.
Hopefully, the committee can work with the civil sector to jointly conduct long-term monitoring and patrols of the river, while cleaning up hotspots for debris and illegal garbage dumping.
Yen Ning and Jason Hu are cofounders of the IndigoWaters Institute.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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