The world’s oceans cover approximately two-thirds of the Earth’s surface and hold no less than 1,332,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters of water.
It’s a staggering number that none of us really understand. It’s no wonder, then, that the oceans have always been seen as an infinite resource when it comes to fishing and an infinite waste receptacle when it comes to sewage and other forms of waste. But plastic waste in our oceans is a growing problem.
The global scale of plastic pollution
Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. The ocean, like land, is by no means infinite and therefore cannot hold infinite amounts of waste. This is evident in the vast oceans, where plastic in particular has accumulated due to ocean currents in five large floating plastic piles that together cover an area the size of Africa. The largest of these is floating in the Pacific Ocean and is almost 1 million square kilometers – or about 20 times the size of Denmark. It consists of hardly degradable waste such as old fishing nets, ropes, plastic containers of various kinds and microplastics. All leftovers from our consumerism.
Pollution in Danish waters
But we don’t have to travel to the Pacific Ocean to see the results of our way of life. Much has been written in recent years about oxygen depletion in Danish fjords, the lack of fish in the Baltic Sea and, more recently, ‘ghost nets’ in Danish waters. Ghost nets are abandoned fishing nets that are either intentionally or accidentally left in the sea and then float around underwater as floating traps until, after 500-600 years, they have decomposed enough to no longer pose a danger to marine animals.
The deadly consequences of ghost nets
A 2021 report estimates the total number of ghost nets in Danish waters at just under 50,000. That’s a lot, a lot, and even though the nets are not all full-sized, they catch thousands of seabirds and marine mammals every year that suffer an agonizing drowning death in the stray nets.
Microplastics and toxins in the food chain
And not only that – during the decomposition process in the ocean, the fishing nets slowly transform into microplastic particles, which then absorb various toxins in the water and thereby poison the animals that ingest them, including us humans who eat fish, for example. Read the rest of the post at Kristeligt Dagblad.
