Chungnam Selected as Best Local Government for 'Marine Litter Reduction'

[Asia Economy (Hongseong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Chungnam Province has been named the best local government for ‘marine litter reduction’ selected by the government.

The province announced on the 23rd that it was selected as the best local government at the ‘Marine Litter Reduction Best Practices Competition’ hosted by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, held at BEXCO in Busan, and received a commendation.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries expanded its marine litter management capacity evaluation, which had been conducted for cities, counties, and districts nationwide, to include metropolitan cities and provinces starting this year. The purpose is to encourage participation in the government’s marine litter reduction policy and to broadly select local governments that have discovered excellent cases.

A total of 22 local governments applied for this year’s competition. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries conducted 1st to 3rd rounds of evaluation on the applicants and selected one best case and three excellent cases respectively.

In the evaluation, the province was recognized for its outstanding policies in areas such as marine litter recycling, private sector participation in coastal cleanup activities, establishment of an environmental cleanup ship operation team, and development of a marine litter collection robot, as well as its achievements including receiving the United Nations Public Service Award and the Jang Bogo Award.

Previously, since 2019, the province has recognized the seriousness of the marine litter problem and has been progressively implementing a clean marine environment project by dividing the process into ‘prevention of occurrence - collection and storage - transportation and disposal,’ thereby contributing to continuous marine environment cleanup and marine ecosystem conservation.

A provincial official said, “As the excellence of our own marine litter management policies and projects has been recognized domestically and internationally, we will continue to take the lead in solving marine litter issues such as plastic waste. We will carefully analyze the local marine environment and establish plans to protect seas free of marine litter.”

Meanwhile, the competition was held in conjunction with the International Coastal Cleanup Day commemorative event and the International Marine Debris Conference.

International Coastal Cleanup Day was first initiated by the U.S. private organization ‘Ocean Conservancy’ and has since developed into an international event designated and operated on the third Saturday of September every year under the sponsorship of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In South Korea, the event was led by private environmental organizations from 2001 and has been held under government leadership since 2014.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.