Every year, more than 114,000 tons of waste and wood are collected in the coasts of South Korea. This is equivalent to 5,700 20-ton truckloads of trash and over 60% of the waste happened to be plastic.

On March 10, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries released the results after monitoring our nation’s coastal waste from 2018 to 2020. In the past three years, the state collected a total of 342,637 tons of marine debris, including waste swept to our shores (annual average of 78,396 tons), waste sediment on our ocean floors (28,504 tons), and floating debris (7,312 tons). This amounts to a yearly average of 114,212 tons.

A closer look at each year showed that authorities collected 95,631 tons of marine debris in 2018, 108,644 tons in 2019 and 138,362 tons in 2020. Choi Seong-yong, manager of marine preservation at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said, “Every year, we are seeing an increase in various everyday plastic waste, including abandoned fishing gear and buoys made of Styrofoam. On top of this, due to frequent typhoons and heavy rainfalls last year, a lot of dead grass and trees piled up at the mouth of the Geumgang and Yeongsangang rivers, significantly increasing the total amount of waste collected.” According to the environmental ministry, as of 2018, South Koreans threw out 3.23 million tons of everyday plastic waste, such as plastic bags and other plastic items.

The oceans ministry also conveyed that the state has collected more marine debris after expanding investment and increasing the members of Marine Environment Guardians, who collect marine debris nationwide, since 2019. Last year, over a thousand members of the Marine Environment Guardians collected nearly 30% of all marine debris that was collected. The central and local governments have concentrated their capacity on handling waste from natural disasters, which occur more frequently every year, and have collected more floating trash, which move along with the currents. But the ministry explained that the collection of waste sediment, which sinks to the ocean floor, has relatively decreased.

The oceans ministry surveyed the abandoned waste in forty locations along the nation’s coastline, and found that plastic waste accounted for the largest proportion of marine debris. The annual average amount of plastic waste was 1,884 kg in the past three years, and this was 60.8% of the total marine debris. Plastic was followed by wood (770 kg) and glass (129 kg). A closer look at the specific type of plastic waste that end up in our shores (based on the number of items) showed that they were mainly drink bottles and bottle caps (26.2%), followed by Styrofoam buoys (20.7%), fishing ropes (17.1%), plastic bags and other plastic films (11.8%). Among all the marine debris, 4.1% came from overseas, mainly China (95%).

The oceans ministry plans to expand the installment of fences to prevent land waste from flowing from our streams to the sea. As a way to reduce the annual amount of marine plastic waste produced, the ministry plans to introduce a deposit for fishing gear and buoys in the second half of next year. When fishermen bring their used fishing gear and buoys, the government will return their deposit. The ministry will also increase the national subsidy ratio for projects managing marine debris and increase the number of Marine Environment Guardians, who clean our oceans, to 1,300.

The government will also provide measures to recycle the abandoned plastic they collect. The biggest challenge is that everyday waste, such as plastic, get mixed with the salt and other matters (marine animals and plants, etc.) making it difficult to recycle them. Choi said, “We plan to discuss with relevant ministries to install pre-treatment facilities for the marine waste in order to remove the salt and other impurities mixed with the marine debris.”