Oceans, marine animals, human food... The scourge of plastic pollution

Nina Droff / Photo credit: Valentino BELLONI / Hans Lucas via AFP 12:29 p.m., May 27, 2023

It is everywhere in our daily lives and even in our oceans: plastic pollution. To remedy this, negotiations between the countries of the world will begin Monday in Paris, under the auspices of the United Nations. And as of this Saturday, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna, and the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu receive about forty representatives of States. The challenge is to sign a legally binding treaty to reduce plastic pollution by the end of 2024. Plastic that dirties especially the seas and oceans.

Between "8 to 12 million tons of plastic arrive from rivers to the sea"

Today, plastic is found in any part of the ocean, in the glaciers of the North Pole or in the deepest seabed. According to Jean-François Ghiglione, an oceanography researcher at the CNRS, more than 20% of the plastic we consume ends up in the ocean. "We know that we have 8 to 12 million tons of plastic coming from rivers to the sea. That's the equivalent of one dump truck per minute in the Mediterranean," says the researcher. "We were able to find places where there were as many microplastics, plastics that are less than five millimeters, as zooplankton, which is the base of the food chain. On the plate of a fish, we have as much plastic as food."

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A concentration of plastic that affects all organisms. More than 700 species of marine animals are now threatened by this pollution. "We have a lot of animals that are going to starve just because they ate too much plastic. All these animals that ingest plastic, even if they do not die immediately, endocrine disruptors will regulate their growth and development. So it's going to really disrupt the organisms that will eat this plastic because of the chemicals inside," says Jean-François Ghiglione.

Banning toxic products in plastic

For environmental associations, it is urgent to take binding measures with this treaty to limit the production of plastic worldwide, but also to ban toxic products in these materials, says Juliette Franquet, of the NGO Zero Waste. "There are additives that are very toxic and very harmful and are therefore very bad for the environment and for our health. The petrochemical industry is very creative at creating new types of plastics: there are more than 4,000 just for packaging, which is still a very important sector."

If nothing is done, the use of plastic is likely to triple by 2060. A first version of the treaty to fight plastic pollution is to be presented after this week of discussions in Paris.