This environmental disaster is at the heart of concerns today. Around Marseille, for years, many associations have been mobilizing, to their measure, concretely and with conviction.
The birth and distribution of plastic products makes it possible to satisfy this need for new instruments in everyone and cheaply. We put it everywhere because its qualities are immense. It is not excluded that our time will later be called the age of plastic …
Between 1965 and today, the miraculous plastic has ended up invading our planet, our seas and our oceans …
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In Hyères in the Var, there are more than 400 participants spread over 15 sites, tirelessly cleaning the coast of its waste.
From the plastic bottle which will take on average 500 years to decompose to the very recent traces of the health crisis …
The traces of the health crisis visible on our coasts
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Anne Settimelli of the association “Explore and Preserve“”, Draws up a heavy assessment “the finding is dramatic, especially at the plastic level. About 80 to 90% plastic is found on the coast. Plastic is a real scourge because it will split up, it is a huge pollutant. It is not biodegradable, it has integrated the entire food chain, we find it from the bottom of the sea to the top of the mountains, it has integrated the water cycle. It really is a public health problem. “
At the end of the collection, each type of waste is carefully sorted and counted. A characterization set up by the Mer-Terre association.
Until then, this pollution was considered a nuisance to tourism, it was not considered a major pollution.
That day, 3.8 tonnes of waste was collected. In total, 1,187 plastic bottles, 140 masks, 6,500 cigarette butts or 25 tires …
A Prévert-style inventory scrupulously listed on the collaborative platform ReMed Zero Plastic which lists all the actions carried out around the problem of plastics at sea.
Sorting and counting of all collected waste
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For Nelly Pons, author of a major survey entitled “Plastic Ocean”, all these initiatives are essential. She specifies that she does not like to oppose small steps and big steps, the citizen scale and the political, or industrial or international coordination scale. “We need everything and everyone at all levels. Citizens are essential. Because everything they are going to be able to implement that goes in the direction of this energy, this desire, this search for solutions, of this momentum, will be able to move the subject forward. We must not forget that we citizens have a lot of power in our hands. In the media coverage that there has been in recent years, it has nevertheless allowed a population uprising, and we have seen initiatives emerge from everywhere that aim to seek solutions. “
Associations occupy the field
Emmanuel Laurin, founder of the association “Wild“, notes” these last years, I see that there is an explosion and the number of associations which are created to go to collect waste and the general awareness. And indeed, it is more young people who have less difficulty getting their hands dirty, picking up waste and even the very young, schoolchildren and children. And then we can see it, even in start-ups, companies, young companies are increasingly thinking about reintegrating waste in the making of their products. So if we are sweet dreamers, we are more and more numerous! “
Via the ReMed Zéro Plastique network, between Nice and Montpellier, the association collects marine litter such as corks that it crushes to create jewelry, the sale of which is used to finance other cleaning actions. 5,000 bracelets were made from nets provided by a local association.
Jewelry design to finance new cleaning actions
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Since 2016, Palana Environment collects ghost nets which represent 10% of marine litter. Worldwide, according to Greenpeace, 640,000 tonnes of nets kill 130,000 marine mammals each year and will haunt the seabed for more than 400 years.
For Pablo Liger, founder of the Palana Environnement association, “ghost nets can do a lot of damage, those lost at sea will continue to fish for months or even years in some places. With currents and storms, they will scrape the seabed and tear off certain species such as coral, for example, and in the longer term it’s still plastic so it will degrade into microparticles and we will be able to find fragments. “
In La Ciotat, Gérard Carrodano is the first fisherman to have collaborated with the association by giving him 20 km of used nets.
Accumulation of waste in the seabed
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To date, the recycling and recovery of ghost nets is still complicated. Among the solutions envisaged, Palana is currently working on furniture and building bricks.
Sandra Pasero has chosen to tackle one of the most polluting industries in the world: textile clothing. After two years of research, the young woman launched her brand Awahi. Technical sportswear, 98% made in France, from recycled plastic bottles. With considerable water savings: 15 liters for an Awahi leggings, 2,700 for a lambda cotton leggings. Sandra manufactures her clothes in Marseille, in this insertion tailoring workshop.
But despite all these great energies, only 6% of plastic waste is now recovered and reincorporated into new objects. To go further, it is our whole way of consuming that must be reviewed. Starting from a simple principle: the best waste is the one that we do not produce!
Building the world after by reducing plastic pollution: this is the crazy adventure of Plastic Odyssey. Led by young engineers from Marseille, this 3-year round the world tour will visit the 3 continents most affected by plastic: Africa, Asia and South America. On board a 40 m vessel, undergoing transformation in Dunkirk, the crew will meet the media, political decision-makers, industrialists and local entrepreneurs to jointly develop projects on site.
#EarthDay No, plastic pollution is not just an environmental problem! Thinking about …
Published by Plastic Odyssey sure Thursday 22 April 2021
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According to Simon Bernard, President and co-founder of “Plastic Odyssey”, “the idea of the boat is to be a kind of demonstrator, of an ambassador who will bring solutions on board. Whether it is recycling machines which can be used in Cairo, for example or in Senegal. But also alternatives to plastic that will come from different project leaders. What we want is to embed them in the same place to show what is already being done and allow replicate them everywhere. “
At the same time, on land, mobile kiosks will be used to raise public awareness to help them change their consumption habits and act on their own scale.
Globally, ten tonnes of plastic are produced every second and a tenth ends up in the oceans. In 2050, if we do nothing, there could be more plastic in the sea than fish.
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