LAST week, a press statement on a subject dear to my heart landed in my inbox: Technology group Wartsila and cruise-ship giant Carnival Corporation announced their joint pilot project to reduce the amount of plastic used in marine operations.

The two companies said: “The aim of the project is to boost maritime sustainability by preventing plastics from harming the environment, and – since plastics are formed from fossil fuels – to also lower CO2 emissions.”

Under the project, Wartsila Global Logistics Services is changing its spare-parts packaging to lower the amount of plastic used by approximately 40 per cent.

It so happens that I am acutely aware of the amount of plastic floating in the world’s oceans. I am a skipper on a small training vessel which regularly takes young people and other groups out on sea experience trips. The crew on board also tries to make themselves useful in any way they can.

For the past three years, I have taken the boat very close to shore, to the chalk cliffs at Beachy Head, a well known landmark in the English Channel. At the foot of the tall cliffs is a rocky outcrop with a lighthouse. On either side of the outcrop are small bays accessible only by boat, or, when the tides allow, on foot.

Beachy Head is a tourist attraction, but also a natural trap for all sorts of floating objects, including, unfortunately, a massive amount of plastic. A group of environmentalists started clearing the jetsam the sea had deposited in this small area; we were asked to help in this, which we have done a few times a year since then.

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What was collected in the first year was incredible – some 40 years’ worth of discarded plastic – expanded polystyrene (visually indistinguishable from the area’s chalk boulders), plastic bottles, plastic bags, fishing nets and floats, utensils and gadgets of all sorts.

That first year, we picked about seven tonnes of mainly-light plastic off the shore. Worryingly, we were scavenging almost as much newly washed-up plastic waste in the next two years. Keeping this tiny bit of coastline reasonably clear of plastic is going to be a job for life. And all this time, plastic is being broken down into micro particles that enter the food chain.

The joint project by Wartsila and Carnival was carried out on two of the latter’s cruise line vessels: the Carnival Splendor and the Carnival Freedom. It entailed the use of recycled-paper packaging material for spare parts, instead of plastic. The companies said that despite the challenging sea freight and humid conditions, the quality of the eco-friendly packaging held up. The packaging led to a considerable reduction in the number of plastic bags used, and added less weight to the shipments to boot. The change in packaging will be incorporated for deliveries to Wartsila customers in both the marine and energy sectors.

Riccardo Cordara, a senior director of Fleet Asset Management at Carnival, said: “Sustainability is all around us. Working closely with our very committed business partner Wartsila, we are accelerating the process to move from a linear to a more sustainable circular economy, replacing plastic with eco-friendly material.“

Saku Maihaniemi, vice-president of Parts Services at Wartsila, said: “Sustainability is a way of doing business that benefits all stakeholders. We congratulate Carnival for taking positive action to reduce the amount of plastic used. At Wartsila, we are now substituting alternative packing materials wherever possible. Our approach is end-to-end – from our suppliers to our distribution centres and onward to the end customer.

“This highly successful joint effort with Carnival represents one more important step along the road to greater sustainability.”

The Wartsila-Carnival initiative is welcome and in line with the drive by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to achieve zero plastic waste discharge by ships into sea by 2025.

In 2021, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) set out to address the issue of marine plastic litter from ships by:

• Reducing marine plastic litter generated by fishing vessels;

• Reducing shipping’s contribution to marine plastic litter;

• Improving the effectiveness of port reception and facilities;

• Improving the treatment of marine plastic litter.

Whether what we have done so far will go anywhere near limiting the insidious incursion of plastic into the marine environment is quite another matter.