Plastic
pollution
Acting together
Observation
Every minute, 18 tonnes of plastics are dumped into the ocean. The direct impact of this waste on marine biodiversity is now well known: suffocation, entanglement of marine animals in ghost nets, ocean gyres and waves of rubbish crashing onto beaches, these shocking visuals are in all our heads.
80% of marine litter comes from land and once at sea, 90% ends up at the bottom of the ocean. It is therefore unrealistic to try to clean up the sea, we must act upstream, the solutions are all on land.
Plastic does not disappear from the environment, macro-waste gradually degrades into smaller and smaller fragments and then enters the entire food chain, from plankton to humans. Plastic pollution also comes from the microfibres in our synthetic fabrics and from the abrasion of tyres. Bacteria and viruses tend to stick to plastic fragments, allowing them to travel around the planet, and constitute the so-called plastisphere.