Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans has reached “unprecedented levels” for 15 years, according to a study that urges the authorities to conclude the international treaty, scheduled for 2024, which aims to save the planet from this garbage.
The research, published this Wednesday in the US journal PLOS One, estimates that since 2005, 170,000 trillion pieces of plastic have been dumped into the sea on the surface of the oceans, mostly microplastics.
The total weight of these plastics represents 2.3 million tons, highlights the study.
This contamination “reached unprecedented levels in the last 15 years,” warns this report, which considers previous estimates underestimated and even predicts an acceleration of the phenomenon if nothing is done to solve it.
The results are based on plastic samples from more than 11,000 stations around the world spanning 40 years, from 1979 to 2019.
These did not show a clear trend until 1990, followed by fluctuations between 1990 and 2005. However, after that date “there is a very high increase, due to the rapid growth of production and a limited number of release control policies” Lisa Erdle, one of the authors, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In the middle of the ocean, this pollution is mainly from fishing gear and buoys, while clothing, car tires, and single-use plastics tend to pollute closer to shore.
The presence of these objects threatens animals, which get trapped in the larger pieces or ingest microplastics that move up the food chain to humans.
If the trend continues, plastic use is expected to nearly double from 2019 in the G20 countries by 2050, to 451 million tons per year, according to a recent international report.
After World War II, in 1950, only two million tons were produced on the planet.
Debris certainly decreased between 1990 and 2005, thanks in part to effective policies like the MARPOL convention. [Convenção Internacional para a Prevenção da Poluição do Mar por Navios] 1988, to stop ship discharges.
But recycling, even in the richest countries, has not been enough to contain the problem.
Last year, 175 countries agreed to end this pollution by developing a binding treaty by the end of 2024 under the auspices of the United Nations.
The next trading session is scheduled for May, in Paris. For the authors, this treaty must be ambitious enough to reduce the production and use of plastic, but also to better manage its elimination.
“The recovery of plastic in the environment has only a limited effect and therefore solutions must focus on limiting plastic emissions,” the study states.
Source: TSF
