Today-June 5
The Government announced the inaugural National Action Strategy on Marine Litter on Sunday during a beach clean-up. It will focus on six areas to combat the growing issue of marine litter plaguing Singapore’s beaches and coastlines. Thousands of tons of trash, such as styrofoam bits and even furniture, are collected from beaches across the island every year. With thousands of tons of marine litter being collected from the country’s shorelines every year, a new nationwide plan was announced on Sunday (June 5) to tackle the growing problem. The National Action Strategy on Marine Litter, launched by the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE), will focus on six key areas such as reducing land-based and sea-based sources of litter. For the first time, it will also consolidate the individual efforts of several government ministries and agencies such as the National Environment Agency (NEA), Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, and national water agency PUB. On Sunday, Mr Desmond Tan, Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment, joined about 30 volunteers from ground-up community organizations for a beach clean-up at Tanah Merah Beach. Among the items they collected — over the course of an hour in the scorching sun — were numerous plastic bottles, straws, fishing ropes, a styrofoam box and even a huge blue plastic barrel that had to be emptied of sand before it could be carted away. Mr Tan told reporters that marine trash remains a problem for the whole world but especially for island states like Singapore, which is surrounded by the sea. Read more at: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/national-strategy-marine-litter-beaches-coastlines-1916781
