Marine pollution: act upstream to reduce plastic waste in the Mediterranean
About 95% of plastic pollution is located on the seabed, according to Ifremer.
© Seyllou / AFP
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2 min
The Mediterranean is the most polluted sea in the world.
The Tara expedition had already demonstrated the omnipresence of plastic waste on its coasts, but scientists from Ifremer, the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea, in partnership with laboratories in Monaco and Italy, wanted to know more.
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With our special correspondent at the IUCN congress in Marseille,
Agnès Rougier
To find out the extent of the damage, French, Italian and Monegasque scientists explored the deep sea, going down to 2,200 meters in submarines, to collect sediments.
The result is dramatic.
"
It is the part of the ocean that is the most affected,"
emphasizes François Galgani, of Ifremer.
It is estimated that approximately 95% of plastic pollution is found on the seabed. And in addition in the Mediterranean, due to the fact that it is a closed basin, the contributions are much greater than elsewhere and they therefore have time to accumulate. The problem is that in depth there is less oxygen and there is no light, which are in fact the factors that promote degradation. That is to say, what could degrade in a few years or tens of years on the surface, in fact will probably degrade in several hundred years on the seabed.
"
► To read also: Marine pollution: will the Mediterranean become a sea of plastic?
It is impossible to pick up plastic waste at such depths, so you have to act upstream to prevent it from reaching the sea. This is the goal of the "
plastic origins
" application, created by the association
Surfrider
.
“
It's just a matter of walking a river, in a kayak and we will list the waste that we will come across during our game,
explains Sarah Atimi
.
This allows us to do a map and then go and see the places that are the most polluted to try to find solutions and offer solutions to communities to reduce the input of waste at the source.
"
80% of marine litter is plastic litter, half of which is packaging.
Reducing or eliminating packaging
therefore remains the first way to get rid of it.
► To read also: [Computer graphics] How our plastics end up in the oceans
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