The upcoming 11th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) from June 16–18 in Kenya, the first held in Africa, will explore solutions to a problem that besets the world’s coastlines: marine pollution.
This is not a niche environmental issue. It is a systemic, cross-border challenge that cuts across climate, biodiversity, food security, and public health that requires coordinated global action.
The scale of the problem is staggering.
More than 80% of ocean pollution originates on land, driven by industrial, agricultural, and urban activities. Plastics, heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and persistent pollutants enter waterways and are carried across the ocean, far from their source. The remaining 20% comes from marine-based activities such as shipping, offshore industries, and fisheries.
What begins as localized pollution rarely stays local. Ocean currents transport contaminants across entire basins, while marine organisms absorb and accumulate them through the food chain. The result is a cascading impact that undermines ecosystem resilience and can ultimately reach our own plates through contaminated seafood.
Plastic pollution is the most visible, and perhaps most emblematic, dimension of this crisis.
Today, 85% of marine litter is plastic. Every single day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks of plastic waste is dumped into rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Annually, that amounts to 19–23 million tonnes entering aquatic ecosystems.
The cumulative burden is even more alarming: an estimated 75 to 199 million tonnes of plastic already circulate in the ocean. Without intervention, the annual flow of plastic could nearly triple by 2040, and by 2050, the ocean could contain more plastic than fish.
This is not abstract. Plastic pollution is already impacting at least 800 marine species, with microplastics found in fish, shrimp, and shellfish destined for human consumption. Each year, marine plastic pollution is responsible for the deaths of millions of marine creatures, including 100,000 marine mammals and 1 million seabirds, and thousands of sea turtles, sharks and other species. The contaminants are traveling up the food chain, with microplastics now detected in human brains, hair, and breastmilk.
Even the most remote ecosystems are not spared. Scientific surveys have found plastic debris on 77 of 84 coral reefs studied globally, including in uninhabited Pacific atolls. Meanwhile, massive accumulation zones, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, now twice the size of Texas, illustrate the scale of the problem in stark terms.
And then there is “ghost gear”, abandoned or lost fishing equipment, that accounts for roughly 10% of marine plastic and continues to entangle and “catch” marine life long after it is discarded.
To address the crisis, marine pollution must be stopped at its source, and this is where OOC11 becomes especially significant.
Hosted by Kenya, a country that has demonstrated global leadership through its 2017 plastic bag ban and subsequent restrictions on single-use plastics in protected areas, the conference will spotlight practical pathways to reduce plastic pollution across its entire lifecycle.
This includes:
- Reducing production of unnecessary plastics
- Designing systems for circularity and reuse
- Strengthening waste management systems
- Supporting community-led solutions
- Scaling innovation in materials and monitoring
But national action alone is not enough.
Marine pollution is inherently transboundary, which is why the push for a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty remains a central pillar of the international strategy. While negotiations launched in 2022 have yet to reach consensus, with key disagreements over production limits, chemicals, and accountability mechanisms, there is still broad support among countries for an ambitious agreement.
The next phase of negotiations, expected to resume in late 2026, will be critical.
OOC11 offers a timely platform to bridge ambition and implementation. It can help align governments, industry, science, and civil society around shared priorities, while reinforcing the message that delay is no longer an option.
Because ultimately, marine pollution sits at the intersection of ocean health, development, public health and economic policy.
And if we are serious about building a sustainable ocean economy, protecting biodiversity, and ensuring food security for billions, then tackling pollution at its source must be at the center of the agenda.
The ocean connects us all. So too must the solutions.
Photo: Steez Visualz, pexels.com
