The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is working towards containment of plastic usage with the institutes of the MoES by banning the single use plastics within their premises. Further, Institutes of MoES such as National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), Centre for Marine Living Resources &Ecology (CMLRE), Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) are conducting the beach clean-up activities. In addition, the Ministry is also engaged in creating awareness to the public on plastic waste pollution via conducting campaigns, lectures and series of webinars.
Ministry through NCCR is undertaking research activities in quantifying litter (mainly meso, macro and microplastics) in the beach, and microplastics in the water and sediment and in different biota including commercial fish, bivalves and Mollusca. Samples from coastal water, beach and offshore sediment, and biota are analyzed for micro/ meso/ macro plastics pollution. An increase in the abundance of microplastics is observed along the east coast during the monsoon. The stations nearer to the river mouth had higher numbers of microplastics concentrations. The Beach litter survey has revealed that the maximum accumulation occurs in the backshore than in the intertidal zone. Moreover, Urban beaches have higher accumulation rates than rural beaches. It is also noted that more than 50% composition of the majority of the waste on the beaches was contributed by single use plastics.
This information was given by the Minister of State (I/C) for M/o Earth Sciences and M/o Science & Technology, Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
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