2023 World Oceans Day: Our seas are full of garbage

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The image of the “Apollo 8 mission” went around the world in 1968. On it you can see: Planet Earth. The view from space showed people its beauty and fascinated by the visible borders. The environmental movement of the 1970s used the image to its advantage and advocated radical preservation of the “blue planet”.

About seven-tenths of the Earth’s surface is blue. The oceans give the planet its color. As a global ecosystem, the sea has many functions: on the one hand, as a habitat for unimaginable species diversity, on the other as the most important climate factor. The world’s oceans absorb large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and are therefore considered the most important carbon sink. Researchers hypothesize that the seas have absorbed about a quarter of the CO2 emissions released by humans since industrialization.

The global ecosystem is at risk

We all remember pictures of a whale dying on more than 80 plastic bags. All plastic islets float in the seas, endangering flora and fauna. The beaches are full of garbage. Pollution of the oceans has serious consequences because only healthy oceans can absorb CO2: Climate change causes water levels to rise, which means the sea poses a threat to entire regions of the country and island groups. In addition, it is said that global warming is the reason for the increase in tropical storms that occur over the oceans and therefore depend on water temperature and currents.

Environmental protection calls for action

The marine conservation organization OceanCare, headquartered in Wädenswil ZH, has been a special adviser on marine protection to the UN since 2011. It demands that individual states take concrete decisions to regulate the disposal of plastic waste. In addition, micro and nanoplastic particles should be banned in cosmetics and plastic materials should be classified according to their toxicology.

Source : Blick