Kategorie: News
OceanCare informs about plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea
They are getting bigger, there are more and more of them and they last for hundreds of years. Marine biologist Dr. Giovanni Bearzi from OceanCare's partner organisation Dolphin Biology and Conservation fishes dozens of plastic monstrosities out of the Adriatic Sea within a few hours during the summer months. All it takes is a gust of wind and the brightly coloured plastic animals drift far out to sea.
"What provides 14 days of beach fun then pollutes the Mediterranean for 400 to 600 years," Bearzi says. The photos show what is found in a few hours of a day off the coasts of the northwestern Adriatic. "The sea is not a fun park and the Mediterranean must not become a plastic waste dump!" said Fabienne McLellan, head of OceanCare's plastics programme.
Mediterranean considered the world's sixth plastic vortex
Over 400 million tons of plastics are produced every year. Every year, around 9 million tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans. Meanwhile, all oceans are affected by plastic waste. Civilisation waste is omnipresent. It can be found on deserted beaches as well as on the seabed of Antarctica. Millions of tons of plastic waste float in five huge waste whirlpools; the one in the Pacific is almost five times the size of Germany. Because of its pollution density, the Mediterranean Sea is considered the sixth rubbish whirlpool. Every year, around 17,600 tons of plastic end up in the Mediterranean. There are constantly more than 3760 tons of plastic waste floating in the water.
Plastic is more than ugly rubbish that pollutes the beaches
The numbers are serious: hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, seals, turtles and even polar bears fall victim to plastic waste; the number of dead seabirds runs into the millions. "If the current trend of littering continues unchecked, by 2050 the weight of plastic waste floating in the ocean will exceed that of the fish that live in it," says OceanCare founder Sigrid Lüber.
Every year, however, millions of plastic disposables such as coffee cups, plastic bags and packaging find their way into the sea. There, plastics can interact with all levels of aquatic life. Fish and crustaceans ingest microplastics. Inflammation has been detected in the tissue of mussels. Larger fish such as sharks, tuna or swordfish ingest the plastic particles directly, but also through their prey. Turtles, whales and dolphins were found dead with stomachs full of plastic waste. They starved to death because they ate plastic pieces thinking it was food. All over the oceans, animals are getting injured by plastic waste. Or they get tangled in debris and ghost nets.
Microplastics - if we eat fish, we are very likely to eat plastic too.
Pieces of plastic smaller than five millimetres are called microplastics. These include small plastic pellets, which are the basis of many plastic products we use every day, and also plastic particles, which are still used in the cosmetics industry, in peelings or toothpaste. One problem: small plastic particles act like sponges, sucking up dangerous pollutants from the water. Plastic itself is also toxic because of the harmful additives. Marine animals absorb them - the smallest creatures as well as large whales. The toxins accumulate along the food web through so-called bioaccumulation, harming the animals and reaching us humans through the marine food chain. Pollutant-rich microplastics are so widespread that we are very likely to eat plastic when we eat fish.
Further information:
OceanCare - Plastic waste
RoboFish - A new research project in the fight against plastic waste