Stop microplastics - save marine animals!
This online petition needs your support:
www.mikroplastik-stoppen.ch
The amount of newly produced plastic is increasing - we are currently at around 400 million tonnes per year worldwide. Logically, plastic pollution of the oceans has also reached an unimaginable dimension: Every year, 9-14 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans worldwide. The material is so popular due to its robustness and durability. The flip side: science assumes that every plastic product that has ever ended up in nature instead of in the waste disposal system is still there!
A plastic bottle is estimated to take 450 years to decompose in the sea, and a synthetic fishing line as long as 600 years. Whereby "disintegrate" only refers to the reduction in size to micro (< 5mm) and nanoplastics (< 0.001mm). However, this is anything but a solution to the problem. On the contrary: microplastics can harm and poison small marine animals because they are a magnet for pollutants. When ingested by animals, microplastics can therefore also be a toxic cocktail.
Plastic waste is a burden on all marine life, large and small: as macro-waste it is a deadly trap or indigestible food for larger marine animals, covers ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs, and as micro-plastics it affects the base of the food chain, phyto- and zooplankton, and enters various organisms via the food chain. Also to us. For example, a person in Europe consumes approx. 11,000 microplastic particles per year.
What many people underestimate is that landlocked countries are also involved in plastic pollution of the oceans. Switzerland alone carries several tonnes of microplastics into the Mediterranean Sea and the Rhine every year. into the North Sea, because local sewage treatment plants filter a lot, but not all, of the wastewater. Even if other countries contribute significantly more to pollution, Switzerland should take responsibility for its actions - for our local environment and the sea. This is why the Swiss marine conservation organisation KYMA sea conservation & research launched the online petition www.mikroplastik-stoppen.ch calling for the regulation of various sources of microplastics. The petition only runs for a short time - so be sure to join and sign now!