The world's oceans are full of plastic waste - in the water, on the beach, on the seabed. It is estimated that there are already more than 150 million tons, and many more are added every year. This is an environmental catastrophe, but there are only a few countermeasures.
When oceanographer and sailor Charles Moore sails the Ross Breadths between Hawaii and California with his crew in 1997, he suddenly sees nothing but trash instead of water. Plastic garbage as far as the eye can see, without a free spot in between.
The discovery of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" shakes up the public. Researchers set out on a targeted search and discover four other huge garbage whirlpools - one in the Pacific, two in the Atlantic, one in the Indian Ocean.
Wind and ocean currents drive plastic waste and discarded fishing nets through the oceans, where they collect in huge eddies. The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" alone is estimated to consist of 1.8 trillion plastic particles by the early 2020s.
The "eighth continent," as it is also called, has an area four times the size of Germany. And these are just the visible plastic particles. Most of the trash, estimates the Marine Conservation Foundation, sinks to the bottom.
Plastic waste in the ocean is not limited to the five whirlpools: It lies on beaches around the world, floats on the surface of other seas such as the North Sea, and spreads to even the most remote regions such as the Arctic.
And the amount of trash is increasing. As much as if a truckload of plastic were dumped into the sea every minute, calculates the British Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Once the plastic is in the water, it takes centuries to decompose. In the process, it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. However, plastic is not biodegraded, i.e. decomposed by microorganisms. The tiny particles remain permanently in the environment.
Plastic of all sizes poses a deadly threat to marine life. Thousands of whales, seals, and harbor seals become entangled in fishing waste every year - that is, in discarded ropes and nets that are either lost at sea or intentionally dumped there. This type of plastic trash makes up about half of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."
The smaller pieces, the single-use plastic, become a trap for smaller animals: sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them; birds accidentally swallow plastic pieces until their digestive tracts are full and they can no longer eat. Ultimately, the animals starve to death.
Around half of the species in the sea and coastal areas suffer from plastic waste. Plastic parts damage coral reefs, which are endangered anyway. Microplastics, i.e. parts smaller than five millimeters, are now found in mussels, fish, crabs and even plankton.
The plastic eventually makes its way back to humans through the food chain. What effects the ingestion of microplastics has on humans is still completely unknown.
What ends up in the ocean en masse is single-use plastic: empty bottles, disposable tableware, packaging, plastic items. The oceans are becoming a dumping ground for the throwaway society.
In many countries, there is a lack of suitable structures for collecting waste and disposing of it properly. Via wind, rivers, poorly designed landfills, lack of wastewater management and more, plastic waste sometimes enters the sea in whole streams. This is particularly common in Asian countries, especially China.
But the garbage does not come solely from the countries where the problem is visible. It is often garbage imported from Europe, where many times more plastic waste is produced per capita. Germany is even the third largest plastic waste exporter in the world - after the USA and Japan. More than one million tons of plastic waste went abroad in 2020 alone.
The industrialized countries therefore have a significant share of the waste input in Asia. This is because the exported plastic waste is often not disposed of according to European standards, but ends up directly in the environment.
The situation is different in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, for example. Here, too, there is plenty of plastic waste in the sea. In the North Sea, the main sources are shipping and fishing as well as tourism. In the Baltic Sea, it is mainly tourists who leave litter on the beaches that ends up in the sea.
With the "Ocean Cleanup" project, Dutchman Boyan Slat wants to rid the ocean of plastic again. A first attempt to fish plastic from the surface using special tubes failed in 2018. Three years later, the improved version was launched.
Critics complain that "The Ocean Cleanup" is ineffective, consumes too many resources itself and ultimately harms many marine animals and plants that have settled in the middle of the garbage vortex.
Since the beginning of 2022, The Ocean Cleanup has been sending special boats called "Interceptor" to the mouths of rivers that carry particularly large amounts of plastic waste into the sea. The solar-powered boats are supposed to collect the waste before it floats into the sea.
Architect Marcella Hansch also had the idea of fishing trash out of the Pacific. In the meantime, with her project "Everwave," she has turned to fishing rivers and inland waters by trash boat so that the plastic does not reach the sea.
The Balearic Islands also rely on trash boats, albeit much smaller ones: Every summer, dozens of boats are out and about off the four largest islands, fishing up not only plastic but also other garbage in order to keep the coasts clean.
The most effective way to protect the oceans is still to prevent waste. But global production of plastic is increasing - and so is the trash. In 2008, the European Union (EU) issued the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which sets out marine protection requirements for member states.
It is explicitly mentioned that waste "must not have any harmful effects on the coastal and marine environment". Actually, a good environmental status should be established for the European seas by 2020. This has only been partially achieved - both in terms of waste discharge and other environmental impacts.
Since single-use plastic items account for a large proportion of waste, the sale of plastic products such as disposable plastic cups, plastic cutlery, cotton buds, drinking straws and also disposable polystyrene containers has been banned in the European Union since 2021. Disposable tableware made from bio-based or biodegradable plastics is also affected. By 2024, the mandatory deposit will be extended.
From 2025, non-refillable PET bottles will have to contain at least 25 percent recycled material, and five years later the proportion will be 30 percent. The reason for this is the low recycling rate in the EU. Some of the plastic waste collected for recycling is still exported to third countries.
Today, there is already almost one ton of plastic waste for every three tons of fish in the sea. If we continue to operate as we do now, there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans by 2050, estimates the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
