The Belgian association of manufacturers of plastic and rubber products Federplast (Brussels; www.federplast.be), together with the fishing community of Belgium, in mid-August communicated the results of their pilot project to retrieve floating waste from the ocean – see Plasteurope.com of 25.11.2011. The aim of the project, co-sponsored by agencies such as “Waste Free Oceans” and “Fishing for Litter”, was to measure the volume of waste on Belgian shores.

A little less than a year after the initiative was launched, survey results show a limited amount of debris off the coast of Belgium. That success notwithstanding, a substantial amount of waste still ends up on the seabed and on the beaches, Federplast said, adding that, "A North Sea without plastic is not for tomorrow."

Aware of the threat to marine life posed by plastic waste, the research centre eCOAST (Ostend / Belgium; www.ecoast.be/en) launched Fishing For Litter, a project that encourages fishermen to bring ashore the waste they catch at sea. Seafarers can hand in the marine debris at the Foundation for the Sustainable Development of Fisheries (SDVO, Ostend; www.sdvo.be) where the litter is sorted before being sent for further treatment or recycling.

The problem posed by coastal garbage and marine litter has been widely discussed. Earlier this year, researchers from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (San Diego, California / USA; www.sio.ucsd.edu) pointed out the effects the waste has on the eco-system in the so-called “Pacific Garbage Patch” – see Plasteurope.com of 17.05.2012.