Germany will collect plastic waste on the sea

Many German businesses are working together to build a system to collect and recycle plastic waste at sea to save the increasingly polluted oceans.

A network of about ten German enterprises is building a collection and recycling system to clean plastic waste on the sea worldwide and is expected to officially put this system into operation from 2018.

In this project, many old and renovated old ships with plastic scoop nets will run into the most plastic waste waters to collect them. Then this waste will be recycled or generated energy on a dedicated ship.

To find out where there is the most plastic garbage in the sea, meteorologists will calculate based on wind direction, ocean waves and rain. The project coordinating team of ten enterprises hopes to have a number of German shipping companies join the project because currently some shipping companies have excess capacity, and instead of dismantling the ship. old people can improve them to serve the marine environmental protection system.

At present, the amount of plastic waste in the sea is about 140 million tons, with an additional 10 million tons per year.

According to estimates, currently the amount of plastic waste in the sea is about 140 million tons, an additional 10 million tons a year.Plastic waste when floating out to sea can exist for hundreds of years. Due to being rubbed, under the influence of seawater, by ultraviolet garbage, plastics will break down into small pieces and can be eaten by seafood species and then present in the human food chain. Therefore, the fisheries and tourism sectors are greatly affected by this amount of waste and it takes a lot of costs to overcome. For example, along the Brazilian coast, up to 70,000 tons of plastic waste are thrown into the sea from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo and 9 ships have to be mobilized to collect garbage and a dedicated vessel for processing this waste. .

There are 192 countries polluted by plastic waste on the sea, of which some Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam are the heaviest. Germany is also affected by plastic waste on the sea, but compared to other Asian countries is not as much, the annual amount of plastic waste in the sea of ​​Germany "only" 20,000 tons in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

The German Federal Government encourages and supports this project. Germany is an economy that recycles waste waste on land. Germany can develop a marine environmental protection system and potentially contribute to the fight against marine waste.