17-07-2025
How businesses incur losses due to prevalence of marine debris?
It is not unusual to see debris floating along the nation's inland waterways, impacting marine life, habitats, and human activities through hazards to navigational safety and others. In this report, TOLA ADENUBI looks at how businesses suffer due to marine debris prevalence.
Marine debris refers to human-caused waste that has deliberately or inadvertently entered the marine environment. It includes plastics, fishing gear, packaging materials, glass, metals, electronic waste, and even derelict vessels.
In Nigerian waterways, from Lagos Lagoon to the Bonny Channel, the Escravos River to Onitsha River Ports, this debris is growing not just in volume, but in complexity and consequence, checks by the Nigerian Tribune revealed.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune on the impact of marine debris to seafaring, President of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners (NAMM), Captain Tajudeen Alao, stated that navigational hazards, equipment damage, loss of time and earnings and threat to small crafts are just few of the issues that marine debris pose to seafaring.
According to the NAMM President, 'Sometimes, large plastics, abandoned fishing nets routinely entangled the vessels propellers, rudders, and thrusters. Vessels have had to execute emergency stops midstream due to debris sightings, thus jeopardizing safety, cargo, and schedules.
'Equipment Damage: During marine engine cooling operations using the medium it floats on, water, marine debris are pull-into the strainers by suction, impellers, ballast pumps, or air-conditioning intakes; and the result is overheating, mechanical failure, or total system shutdown.
'For ferry and fishing boat operators, especially those with outboard engines, plastic bags, ropes wrapped around propeller shafts often mean ruined gearboxes and costly repairs.
'Loss of Time and Earnings: Each stoppage for cleaning strainers, untangling ropes, or making emergency dry-docking for fouling costs valuable man-hours. For operators paid by voyage or charter time, marine debris translates directly to loss of income. A recent Lagos Inland Waterways report logged over 380 ferry delays caused by propeller entanglements in 2024 alone.
'Threat to Small Craft and Local Transport: Speedboats, wooden canoes, sports crafts, and water taxis in coastal towns suffer disproportionately. Large floating debris as submerged logs which are barely visible in tidal waters have been known to cause capsizing, hull puncture, and loss of control which have led to unnecessary loss of lives on our waterways. These are not hypothetical risks, they are daily realities in places like Epe, Badagry, Yenagoa, and Calabar.'
Effect on fishing
Aside affecting the seafaring business, fishermen are not left out of the menace that marine debris can unleash. Also speaking on the impact on fishing, the Second Vice President of NAMM, Captain Olajide Olugunwa ,stated that marine debris lead to reduced catch for fishermen.
In the words of Captain Olajide Olugunwa, 'In Akwa Ibom, Rivers, and Bayelsa, fishermen report increasing instances of reduced catch, fish with plastic content in their stomachs, or fish exhibiting deformities and toxic odor. This undermines marketability, compromises protein sources, and collapses rural incomes.
'Scientific studies in Nigerian coastal states now confirm the presence of microplastics in commercially consumed fish and shellfish. This presents a long-term public health hazard through biomagnification, potentially linked to hormonal disruptions, gastrointestinal diseases, and cancer.
'From torn nets caught on submerged scrap metal to destroyed traps and blocked fish channels, artisanal fishers are losing hundreds of millions of naira annually. Larger industrial trawlers incur greater dry-docking frequency and fuel costs to avoid debris-heavy zones.
'Also, Sea turtles, dolphins, manatees, and juvenile fishes are often found entangled in ghost fishing nets or suffocated by ingestion of plastic. These events are not rare; they are now endemic. What was once an ecological concern has become a commercial catastrophe.'
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Tourism implication
The NAMM President further revealed that marine debris cause major degradation to the nation's coastline, leading to losses in the tourism space.
'Marine debris wash up on Nigeria's beaches, from Tarkwa Bay to Oguta Lake, turning tourist zones into unsightly dumps. Once-pristine resort areas now host plastic-laden coastlines, eroding our tourism potential, property value, and coastal livelihoods.
'Aside effect on tourism, it also comes with health implications for Nigerians. Decomposing garbage in water harbors bacteria, releases methane and leachate, and creates breeding grounds for vectors, leading to cholera outbreaks, skin infections, and respiratory illness among riverside communities.
'Foreign shipping lines now raise operational concerns when approaching Nigerian ports. Images of floating debris near Apapa Anchorage, warped quay aprons, or clogged port approaches discourage long-term investment and lower our competitiveness in West Africa's maritime corridor.
'We risk handing our children a coastline littered with synthetic waste, poisoned waters, and lifeless estuaries. Without systemic change, marine debris may become one of Nigeria's most challenging environmental legacies. This is an urgent call for action,' Captain Tajudeen Alao warned.
Way forward
With marine debris threatening to take over Nigeria's maritime space, the following solutions via a multi-tiered approach is urgently recommended.
National Marine Debris Act: Establishment of a legislative framework backed by NASS for marine debris regulation, clearly defining categories of debris, offenses, penalties, and institutional responsibilities.
Mandatory Debris Management Plans: Make it compulsory for Shipping lines, Terminals, and Offshore Platforms to file and implement Marine Debris Mitigation Plans, like the oil spill response protocols.
Integrated Coastal Waste Governance: Empower a joint taskforce of NIMASA, NIWA, NESREA, and state environmental agencies to monitor, enforce, and coordinate coastal cleanup operations.
Enforcement/Sanctions: Impoundment and fines (minimum of ₦5 million) for any operator caught disposing off waste into water bodies.
Community Waste-to-Wealth Incentives: Encourage local recovery and recycling initiatives through grants, maritime youth engagement, and training programs.
Surveillance Technology Investment: Deploy satellite-based marine surveillance, drone sweeps, and radar-augmented buoys to detect and monitor debris zones in real time.
Public enlightenment: Build a coalition of schools, churches, mosques, market associations and transport unions around a unified message: 'Protect Our Waters. Preserve Our Future.' Also, part of the public enlightenment effort should include integration of ocean literacy and anti-littering education into primary and secondary curricula across coastal states.
Private Sector Responsibility: Food and beverage multinationals must be accountable for their packaging waste – via Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) mechanisms.
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