Household Plastic Waste and the Degradation of the Negombo Lagoon Seabed: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study

Abstract

This document reports a hermeneutic phenomenological study of household-sourced plastic and polythene pollution on the seabed of the Negombo lagoon, on the west coast of Sri Lanka. Five long-standing lagoon users, all men over fifty years of age with between eighteen and forty years of direct experience of the lagoon, were interviewed about the changes they have witnessed on the mangrove seabed, in the fishery and in lagoon-based tourism. Their accounts are read together with the lead researcher's own field observation from cleanup work, guiding and informal conversation in the same community. The respondents describe a seabed once covered by sand and soft soil that is now patched with plastic and polythene of household rather than industrial origin, a visible fall in fish and prawn density, and damage caused by day visitors to the mangrove islands. These lived accounts correspond closely with recent instrumented sampling of microplastics in the same lagoon. The paper reads the findings through a management lens, arguing that cleanup alone will not hold unless collected plastic is given a recoverable economic value and the fishing and tourism-boat community is engaged as a stakeholder rather than a bystander. Short, medium and long term recommendations are offered, linking ecological restoration to livelihood and tourism management outcomes.