The plastic waste problem is a major environmental issue around the world. In the Gulf of Mottama, it’s easy to see signs of this problem – piles of plastic and other waste on the beaches, riverbanks, even in unofficial “dump” locations in the city of Mawlamyine. Currently, the Gulf of Mottama Project (GoMP) is supporting work by the Myanmar Coastal Conservation Lab (MCCL) at Point B Design + Training to better understand the impacts of plastic waste on the environment and communities in the Gulf, as well as the drivers of waste production and possible solutions. Before we started this work, however, we learned about one impact of plastic that we hadn’t expected – during our field visits for another research project earlier this year.
On the west coast of Chaungzon Island is a small fishing village called Zee Gone. This is the base for our marine mammal research for the GoMP; our research team works with a local boatman to conduct boat-based surveys, and enjoys the village’s hospitality during its overnight stays. During her free time on these research trips, MCCL researcher Yin Yin Htay often visits with the locals to learn more about their lives and to be a friendly and helpful neighbor. This is how we learned about the process for making dried shrimp products – and how plastics have made this process more difficult!
Fisheries are a major livelihood for this community, and processing the fisheries products is generally done by the women. Two major products include the fish Nga nhat and dried shrimp. Based on observations and conversations with villagers, we learned that plastics intrude on these fisheries: with each catch of Nga nhat or shrimp, the nets also bring in countless small pieces of plastics that are floating in the sea.
When the Nga nhat is brought back to shore, the fish is sorted on the beach. Plastic debris from the catch is then left on the beach. For the shrimp, it is too difficult to sort out the small plastic parts while the shrimp is still wet. So, the shrimp processing continues with the plastic pieces: the shrimp and plastic are boiled together, then spread out to dry in the sun (though for animal feed, it is just directly dried without being boiled). Walking around the shrimp drying area, you can easily see the high levels of plastic mixed into the shrimp.
Once the shrimp and plastic pieces are dried, then the women can separate them using a bamboo and mesh filter. The plastic pieces are either left on the ground where they fall, or brought to the riverbank for disposal.
The plastic mixed with the shrimp seems to be mainly fragments from plastic sacks (such as those used for rice), clear plastic bags, sachets, pieces of fishing net, straws, and other fragments of plastics. With the pieces being so small, it is difficult to identify what exactly they are and where they come from.
Processing dried shrimp is already a demanding, difficult job – and now, plastics make it even more difficult. We were told that, even though there has been plastic in the catch for many years, it increased substantially about 6 years ago. The women said that the plastic makes them busier; they have to spend extra time and energy to sort the plastics from the shrimp.
For sorting the Nga nhat, plastics also make things more difficult for processing. The women said that sometimes, they need to work late at night because the fishing boats return then. Having to spend extra time sorting plastic when it is already midnight or later is harmful for their health and well-being.
It will be extremely difficult to remove all of these small pieces of plastics from the ocean. However, learning about this problem of plastics in fish catch does highlight some important steps to be taken:
- Improving waste disposal systems so that the processors can dispose of the plastic fragments in a way that won’t return to the sea
- Improving waste disposal systems in Mon State to reduce the plastic waste along the local coastline (though plastic can still float here from other parts of the world)
- Raising awareness among the general public of the ways that plastic waste can negatively impact not only the environment, but people, too – including their health and well-being, both for fisheries processors but also for consumers, who might be eating seafood products contaminated with plastics
We at MCCL are in the middle of our intensive research on plastic use and disposal in Mon State, and will start in Bago Region in June. This will inform our future stakeholder workshops to design possible solutions to plastic waste in the Gulf of Mottama. This is part of a larger campaign by the GoMP. Though the plastics problem is huge, we hope that these efforts can be a strong first step in reducing the many negative impacts of plastics for our local environment and communities.