BEST PRACTICES TOWARDS REDUCTION OF PLASTIC POLLUTION
“The water quality priority area of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR PA4) aims to ensure integrated water management towards reaching the good quality of waters in the Danube River Basin. Hungary, together with Slovakia has been assigned to coordinate the water quality issues (Priority Area 4).
The present study was developed in the frame of the DTP PAC1 PA4 project (PA04 Water Quality), as the topic of the plastic pollution has become more and more highlighted during recent years with also impacting water quality measures.
Besides its destructive aesthetic look, different plastic items, as results of fragmentation process, turn into microplastics, which can enter into the food-chain, and in long term can have a negative impact on the ecosystem and may also influence human health. Research and studies show that wastewater treatment plants and tyre abrasion are also significant sources of microplastics in river catchments.
Currently research programs are ongoing to find out how microplastic affects the ecosystem and the human-health. As an important challenge the reduction of plastic waste is already highlighted both in Danube and Tisza river (sub-basin) wide scale. Two of the EUSDR PA4 related projects, the DTP-JOINTISZA project (running since January 2017) and the Tidy-up project (submitted in the DTP 2019 call with Letter of Recommendation from EUSDR PA4) are aiming at to find solutions to reduce this pressure.
Following the review of the current situation of the plastic pollution, the document introduces best practices to show what kind of steps have been already taken to overcome this emerging problem.”
