The Sea and the Rubbish

You often find rubbish on the beach, washed up by the waves: planks or boards, bottles, ropes and cables, scraps of fishing nets, or plastic containers, bags and toys. Everyone knows that what we find on the beach is just a small part of the enormous amount of rubbish floating in our seas. But waste in the sea does break down, doesn’t it? Yes, it does. But sometimes it takes a very long time. If you throw an apple core into the sea, it will be gone after two months. A daily newspaper takes only six weeks to break down. Wood can take up to three years, and a woollen sock about five years. A tin can breaks down in around 50 years. But plastics, which we usually call plastic, take much longer. Plastic bottles and disposable nappies take about 450 years to break down completely. A fishing line will still be there after 600 years. So rubbish that ends up in the sea can sometimes float around for centuries.

Many countries have organized waste collection services. We put our rubbish in bins, which are emptied regularly. Even so, many people simply throw their rubbish into the street, onto the sidewalk, in the woods, or into the nearest stream.

The picture at the bottom left was taken by chance on a street in Berlin on an ordinary weekday. The rubbish lying around did not fall from the sky; people threw it there. Much of it is cigarette butts, simply flicked onto the ground.

Of course, the garbage collectors eventually come to this street, sweep up the litter and take it to the landfill. But they don’t pick up everything. Plastic waste is a particular problem, such as cigarette filters.

Plastics eventually become brittle in sunlight and break down into ever smaller pieces. These tiny fragments are called microplastics.

Many cars drive on our roads. Their tires contain a lot of plastic. As they drive, tiny particles break off the tires and enter the environment. Our toiletries also contain a lot of plastic. We use plastic toothbrushes and dental floss, Q-tips and all kinds of creams. Not only the packaging is made of plastic; often the products themselves are, too. Some plastics are added to products because, for example, they make them lather better.

Tiny pieces of plastic and tyre wear are also microplastics. They are washed into the sewers or the nearest stream. Even after the water has been treated at a sewage treatment plant, wastewater still contains many tiny plastic particles.

These particles may be invisible, but eventually they make their way down the great rivers and into the seas and oceans, along with other waste that people simply throw or discharge into rivers.

Scientists estimate that more than 100 million tonnes of rubbish are floating in the world’s oceans. Around 10 million tonnes are added each year. There are now five enormous gyres drifting through the oceans like giant islands of rubbish.

Anything floating in seawater can be dangerous to fish and other marine animals. They mistake it for food and snap at it. A sea turtle, for example, can easily mistake a floating plastic bag for a jellyfish. But it can’t digest the bag, and it doesn’t break down inside its body either. Instead, it joins other pieces of plastic to form a lump in the animal’s stomach. It is estimated that this problem already affects almost half of all whales and dolphins, more than a third of seabirds, and many fish. These clumps of rubbish can partly block the animals’ digestive tracts. Some starve with full stomachs because they can no longer digest their natural food. Another danger comes from fishing nets that are lost from ships or simply thrown into the sea when they wear out. These are called “ghost nets”. A plastic net takes around 600 years to break down completely. Until then, it can become a deadly trap for many turtles, whales and fish.

Plastic waste in the sea eventually turns into microplastics too, breaking down into tiny pieces. Researchers examined 400 fish from the North and Baltic Seas. 276 of them had microplastics in their bodies. Almost all northern fulmars living in the North Sea region also have plastic in their stomachs because they have swallowed plastic waste. Eventually, plastic in the sea harms us humans too. Salt produced from seawater can also contain microplastics. When fish swallow tiny microplastic particles in the water, are then caught and eaten by people, the plastic ends up in our bodies too. Well, bon appétit! Or should we perhaps think of a way to avoid these problems? What do you think?