Plastic bottles — one of the main types of ocean garbage — are washing up in coastal areas within just 23 days of leaving the bottling line, Yen Ning (顏寧), chief executive officer of environmental consultancy the IndigoWaters Institute, said in an interview with the Central News Agency this week.
IndigoWaters, which offers services and advice to authorities in Taiwan on the management of coastal and ocean pollution, compiled data from the Environmental Protection Administration’s “Project of Promoting and Maintaining Clean Coasts and Performance Management: Rapid Assessment and Source Analysis,” which the agency released in December last year.
The analysis was based on plastic waste collected at 11 coastal areas where large volumes of plastic waste wash up in Changhua, Chiayi, Yunlin, Kinmen, Lienchiang, Penghu and Pingtung counties, as well as Taoyuan.
A study of bottling dates on the 550 plastic bottles collected indicated that some Taiwanese-made bottles had left the production line only 23 days before they became ocean waste, Yen said.
After estimating the time to fill the bottles and sell them, plastic bottles can become litter within one to two weeks of leaving the production line, the institute said.
Of the 550 bottles collected, 51.5 percent came from China, while Taiwan contributed 30.7 percent, 14.9 percent were of unknown origin due to wear and tear and 2.9 percent were from Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia, the institute said.
Waste bottles from China accounted for more than 50 percent of the samples collected in Taoyuan, Chiayi, Penghu, Kinmen and Lienchiang’s Matsu islands (馬祖), it said.
As the Matsu islands are much closer to China’s Fujian Province than Taiwan proper, the volume of Chinese plastic waste collected there was 93 percent, it said.
Bottles made in Taiwan accounted for more than 50 percent of the samples collected in Changhua and Yunlin counties, it said.
About 1,426 tonnes of plastic waste was collected overall, with Taiwan proper accounting for 68 percent and the outlying islands 32 percent, the institute said.
More than 50 percent of the waste was found in locations that account for only 10 percent of Taiwan’s coastline, it said.
Plastic waste spends a relatively short period in the ocean before being washed ashore, Yen said.
Reducing use of plastic bottles and littering are necessary to lower ocean and coastline pollution, she said.
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