About 30 state and government leaders pledged at the French "Brest" summit to do more to protect the oceans from pollution, after the issuance of a scientific report warning of devastating environmental crises in the world's oceans due to plastic pollution.
The report issued by the World Wide Fund for Nature stated that the problem of ocean plastic will increase fourfold by mid-century unless the necessary measures are taken to limit its exacerbation.
If urgent measures are not taken to combat this scourge, the social cost of the plastic pollution crisis may reach $7 trillion.
The report stresses that the plastic pollution crisis shows no signs of abating.
Melanie Bergmann, a marine biologist at the German Alfred Wegener Institute, says that plastic cannot be removed from the ocean. The waves reach remote shores that people can't reach."
The report also warned that by the end of the century, dangerous levels of macroplastic concentrations would be seen in marine areas more than twice the size of Greenland, the world's largest island.
The WWF will call on governments to start direct negotiations on an international treaty to protect the high seas and combat plastic pollution at the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly later this month.
The danger of plastic
The danger of plastic is that most of its products are not biodegradable, and it may take tens to hundreds of years to decompose in water, in addition to that it is light in weight and can spread easily by waves and winds.
Also, plastic products contain substances, some of which are toxic and pose a threat to the health of living organisms.
Plastic negatively affects the health of 88 species of marine life that was covered by the study of the World Wide Fund for Nature, and researchers estimated that about 90% of seabirds and 52% of sea turtles are susceptible to ingesting plastic waste.