{"id":12954,"date":"2021-04-19T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T12:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.gstic.org\/?p=12954"},"modified":"2022-03-18T16:10:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T15:10:32","slug":"realising-long-term-solutions-for-marine-plastics-pollution","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.gstic.org\/expert-story\/realising-long-term-solutions-for-marine-plastics-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"Realising long-term solutions for marine plastics pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
More than 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans every year, which is the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastics every minute. If no action is taken to break the current trends, that amount is expected to more than double in the next 10 years and oceans will have more plastic than fish by 2050. Marine plastic pollution is therefore a serious threat to both ocean health and public health worldwide. Quite rightly, the European Commission\u2019s recently announced Circular Economy Action Plan defines plastics as a focus sector where the potential for circularity is high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
50% of all plastic material is used only once before throwing away. Plastic, however, is a strong, flexible and durable material<\/a> that degrades slowly. A plastic bottle, for example, can last for 450 years in a marine environment, slowly disintegrating into ever smaller pieces that never really disappear. Such pieces can be found almost everywhere, as shown by the discovery of microplastics embedded deep in the Arctic ice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n