A plastic bag floats over coral in the Red Sea in Egypt. Whether it can be recycled into a product made from sea plastic is questionable.
Image: dpa
Riding the blue dot wave: Ocean plastic, made from the garbage in the oceans, has become a sought-after commodity. It just doesn’t always contain what’s on the outside.
Dhe Pale-footed Shearwater, chocolate plumage, pink feet, is a patient zero. The seabird, which breeds in colonies off the Australian coast, is suffering from plasticosis. Plastic parts, which he mistakes for something edible, cause the tissues of his digestive tract to become permanently inflamed. It scars and hardens, the stomach can no longer work as it should. And the plastic that drives all of this isn’t going away. Two months ago, scientists have this Disease picture detected for the first time in wild animals. There is little prospect of recovery. New plastic pours in year after year. The plastic waste in our oceans is, that is now clear at the latest, far more than an aesthetic or economic problem.
Somehow wanting to get rid of what is good for the creatures of the sea and, via the food chains, also for people, is obvious. Not only is the number of organizations committed to ridding the ocean of plastic waste growing, but so are companies. At the same time, they promise their customers something else: You can feel part of this fight if you just buy a shoe or swimsuit made of “ocean plastic”. The garbage in the oceans is marketed as a commodity that suggests: This product will save a turtle, a whale, a pale-footed shearwater. The truth is a lot more complicated.
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