The International Maritime organisation’s Marine Environment Protection Committee met at IMO headquarters in London from 7 to 11 April 2025 and adopted a new 2025 Action Plan to Address Marine Plastic Litter from Ships, the organisation announced following the 83rd session.
The action plan reorganises the IMO’s efforts on ship-generated plastic waste by grouping measures into short, medium and long-term actions, a structure intended to bring clarity and sequencing to work that the committee said will update the organisation’s approach to ship-sourced plastics.
The 2025 plan is conceived as an interim instrument that will, in due course, be combined with the IMO’s existing marine-plastics strategy in a single resolution, aligning the new measures with the organisation’s longer-standing policy framework and signalling an intention to consolidate related instruments.
A distinct element of the plan targets plastic pellets carried in freight containers by sea, establishing a dedicated action strand that covers mandatory measures to reduce the environmental risks posed by pellet loss during the transport chain.
That pellet-focused work follows consideration by the IMO’s Sub-Committee on Pollution Prevention and Response at its twelfth session, which the committee referenced as the technical basis for advancing mandatory requirements under the new action plan.
Structure and sequencing of measures
The committee organised the plan’s content into short-, medium- and long-term actions, allowing members to prioritise immediate steps while mapping out subsequent regulatory and non-regulatory measures over a longer timeframe; the session documentation presented this phased approach as central to updating the organisation’s response to ship-generated plastic waste.
The adopted plan is intended to be integrated with the existing marine-plastics strategy, with the committee setting an objective to produce a consolidated resolution that captures both the strategy’s policy aims and the action plan’s operational measures.
Plastic pellets and containerised cargo
A dedicated action within the plan addresses lost or released plastic pellets, stipulating mandatory measures aimed at reducing environmental risk from pellets transported in freight containers; the decision drew directly on work prepared by the Sub-Committee on Pollution Prevention and Response at its twelfth session.
The committee’s documentation links the pellet measures to the broader plan while distinguishing them as a targeted priority, reflecting the specific transport and handling challenges posed by small plastic particles within containerised supply chains.
Alongside plastics work, the committee approved a North-East Atlantic emissions-control proposal that addresses emissions of sulphur oxides, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, adding a regional air-emissions element to this session’s outcomes.
The MEPC’s approval of the North-East Atlantic proposal was recorded in the session record; the measure, as noted by the committee, covers three principal pollutants: sulphur oxides, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides.
The committee’s package of decisions from MEPC 83 therefore combined a restructured plan for tackling ship-generated plastic litter, targeted mandatory action on plastic pellets in containerised cargo, and regional controls on key atmospheric pollutants for the North-East Atlantic, reflecting a cross-media approach to maritime environmental protection advocated during the session.
All items and the official summaries of MEPC 83 were published by the International Maritime organisation, which provided the session dates and a synopsis of the adopted actions in its meeting materials.