UCT Sustainability and the SDGs 2022 - Report - Page 38
6
Blue/ocean
economy for
accelerated
economic
growth
SDG 14: LIFE BELOW WATER
Oceans are crucial for human health and well-being. Unfortunately, the
health of our interconnected oceans and fresh water is under threat. UCT is
increasingly taking a global leadership role in ocean observations to monitor
the health of aquatic ecosystems in southern Africa.
On campus, UCT strives towards sustainable water management practices
and aspires to be an internationally recognised community of water-wise
individuals; this includes water-sensitive waste disposal and an action plan
for properly disposing of plastics on campus.
Fitzpatrick Institute of African
Ornithology
Waste plastics that are not disposed of properly pose
a serious environmental threat. Plastic litter has been
accumulating in the oceans and wetlands for decades,
where it entangles and is eaten by a wide variety of
aquatic fauna. UCT’s Fitzpatrick Institute of African
Ornithology, based in the Faculty of Science, started
documenting the impact of plastics in the 1980s, and
more recently has been focused on understanding
environmental plastic origins and fate with a view to
policy change to reduce leakage of plastics into the
environment.
In 2019, researchers at the FitzPatrick Institute
developed the approach of using bottles to identify the
main sources of litter in marine systems, highlighting the
ongoing illegal dumping of plastic waste from ships. This
tool has now been adopted by research teams based in
Australia, Spain, Norway and the UK, and the findings
from these studies are feeding into the UN Plastic Treaty
negotiations.
Despite this, most litter in South Africa (and most of
the global south) comes from local sources. 2022 was
the culmination of a three-year project assessing the
flux of street litter and assessing the use of simple litter
interception devices to stem the flow of waste plastic
into the sea.
38 – University of Cape Town
Knowledge contributions:
In 2022 the work on plastics influenced several research
publications, including:
Impacts of plastic in
the oceans on marine
species, biodiversity and
ecosystems
Emeritus Professor Peter
Ryan of the Fitzpatrick
Institute was one of the
reviewers of this WWF
commissioned study
Monitoring of Floating
Marine Macro Litter:
state of the art and
literature review
A technical report for the
European Commission
