The dumping of garbage (especially plastics) into the sea and oceans is a serious environmental problem of which there is not much awareness or many acts are carried out. Various studies analyze the tons of waste per year that are dumped into the seas and oceans, and the damage they cause to marine flora and fauna is calculated.
The Mediterranean Sea does not escape due to the accumulation of large fragments of garbage in its waters. What happens to all this waste?
Trash from the Mediterranean Sea
In the Mediterranean Sea there are about 62 million large pieces of waste in its waters. From garbage bags, to construction materials, plastics, packaging, etc. This represents a great threat to marine ecosystems and to humans, since quantities of heavy metals can be passed through the food chain.
The organization Ecologists in Action has carried out a study on marine litter, plastics and microplastics that degrade and negatively affect marine ecosystems. This study summarizes knowledge contributed by some 300 international scientific publications.
The study reflects such incredible data as that every year they enter the ocean between 6,4 and 8 million new tons of garbage. Among the composition of all these wastes dumped into the sea, we find that 80% are plastics. Among plastics we find microplastics that, due to their smaller size, are capable of traveling long distances and expanding over more areas. Environmentalists warn in the summary study that there are more than 690 species of flora and fauna that have interacted with plastic marine litter. This causes the remains to be incorporated into the trophic chain and reach the human being in the feeding of fish.
Most of the waste comes from land
The report notes that of all the new garbage that enters the sea each year, 80% of it comes from land. Normally, from areas with high population density and the presence of some type of industry or landfills. At the beginning of these studies, some blocks of marine debris were detected mainly on the coast. However, over the years, large islands of floating garbage have been recorded in the open sea and on the ocean floor.
This amount of garbage found is already more worrying for ecosystems and humans. Microplastics are particles of less than five millimeters in size. Ecologists in Action warns of the high presence of these microplastics from cosmetic products. They bypass sanitation systems until they drain into seas and oceans and accumulate in the food chain.
Also, many of these microplastics come from the fragmentation of synthetic synthetic fabrics (in a single wash they can generate more than 1.900 microplastic fibers) or from the degradation of plastic bags into microscopic particles.
Pollution is a great threat
It is always said that the first global environmental problem is climate change. Its impact on the planet is very serious. However, the problem of pollution adds to climate change and becomes one of the greatest global threats of this century to the oceans.
It also highlights that in some cases marine organisms do not suffer direct death from entanglements in plastic nets, but are seriously affected by injuries or impediments generated by entrapment.
In addition, ecologists note that macroplastic ingestion has been documented in a wide number of organisms, including commercially valuable fish species such as herring and mackerel, Mediterranean tunas and Atlantic cod, in which confusion Garbage with food can cause direct death, through stomach obstruction, or affect your bodies in the long term.
Forbidden fishing nets could be used to collect the inert materials, and respect the fish.
At the mouths of all the ravines and streams there should be dams to collect all the remains when there are avenues and the municipalities would be in charge of collecting them, so that they would also serve to favor the infiltration of the waters and avoid marine intrusion. The municipality that is upstream of that channel should exist dams to facilitate the infiltration of the waters, stopping them and collecting all the junk thrown into the channels and at the same time facilitate the companies that manufacture cement, gravel and sand, the collection of said materials causing the cleaning of channels sufficient to control these waters at a minimum cost.