Best practices for marine litter reduction in the EU.

Abstract

CleanSea partners catalogued and evaluated the potential of voluntary institutional arrangements, understood here as good and best practices, in reducing marine litter in the four European regional seas. Good practices were defined in this study as those arrangements that have proven to be effective in delivering a contribution to marine litter reduction. Best practices were defined in this study as those good practices that demonstrate social, technological and/or institutional innovation in a specific category of the waste hierarchy. Understanding good and best practices and their conditions for success can help Europeans achieve litter-free seas. A novel approach Three aspects were new about this study. First, it targeted good practices along all stages of the marine waste hierarchy of: (1) prevention, 2) redesign and/or reuse, 3) recycling, 4) collection, 5) clean-up, and 6) awareness), paying particular attention to upstream initiatives where most information is lacking. Second, it used innovation as the defining criterion for best practice examples. Third, it represents one of the first systematic efforts to understand the potential impact and conditions of success of selected best practices in a comparative fashion, by sharing a common research protocol among partners in the four European regional seas.