Institutional arrangements

Policies for sustainable management of waste disposal should be set in a broad, cross-sectoral framework of governance. They need to be built into planning and may require dialogue and collaboration across a range of institutions, a public education process, and processes for policing and legal redress. Clearly with such a complex agenda there may be many suitable approaches, and these may differ between nations, however two important principles must be considered.

Stakeholder involvement. The issues involved in reducing waste and cleaning the environment will impinge on all sectors in society. It is vital that each of these sectors is given a voice, a role in shaping policy and in subsequent action and management. These sectors may include public interest organisations, industry, trade unions, agricultural bodies, conservation organisations as well as the traditional bodies of governance and enforcement. By involving stakeholders from the start it is possible to give these bodies a sense of ownership of the ongoing policy process which greatly helps with issues of compliance.

A scaled approach. The individual sources of waste entering the marine environment vary from broad-scale to highly localised. They include individual members of the public who make a decision (often unconscious) to thow litter, to a government, or even and intergovernmental group who make decisions about which pesticides to license or to ban. Certain problems are clearly local and will only be dealt with at a local level, such as sewage or waste disposal at the municipal level, or even at the level individual homes or hotels. While policy and legal frameworks may be established at the national level, the administration and implementation of solutions for local problems is often better handled at the appropriate local scale. By contrast, other issues such as greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced world-wide. Unilateral efforts will have little impact, and may unfairly penalise particular parties. Here policies must be set in an international framework, although action may be administered by national governments.