We know who generates them, where they come from and how to solve the problem. But money and politics always make the difference

There has been much talk in recent years about plastic waste and microplastics in the seas and oceans, so much so that the problem has occupied traditional information channels and the web for a long time .

Environmentalists have mobilized, companies that ride the emotional wave of the people with campaigns with a vague greenwashing flavor, scholars, scientists, celebrities, religious leaders, nutritionists, sociologists, visionaries and last-minute catastrophic characters.

Since floating islands of plastic waste appeared in the oceans, such as the Great Pacific Garbage Path, the world has mobilized to understand the phenomenon, where it came from, how these islands were formed and how we could have intervened to clean up the oceans and stop the new formations of waste.

During this cycle of media-scientific attention, the more insidious phenomenon of microplastics has also emerged, product fractions lower than 5 mm., which are often mistaken by fish for food, dangerously re-entering the human food chain as well.

Where does the plastic waste we find in the seas and oceans come from?

According to recent studies every year man dumps around 8 million tons of plastic waste into the seas, which means over 250 Kg. per second, creating a presence of about 5,000 billion pieces, of various sizes, in the marine ecosystem.

Macro plastics, i.e. waste the size of a bottle of water, mainly comes from man's deliberate actions of discharging, through rivers, domestic waste or waste that comes from recycling companies located in underdeveloped countries, where attention to the environment and non-punitive environmental legislation is non-existent or lax, allowing or tolerating these behaviours.

As regards microplastics their origin can be traced back to three main factors, the decomposition of the macro plastics already present in the sea under the action of the sun and water, the waste of the textile and cosmetics sector.

Furthermore, microplastics can also come from discharges from industrialized countries, where environmental regulations have not yet solved the problem of capturing and eliminating the smallest particles of plastic.

How to technically solve the problem

Evidently there are two temporal factors that must be taken into consideration when it comes to operating to find the right solutions to apply.

In the first place we need to intervene upstream, i.e. stop the discharge of plastic waste into rivers, as if they were a legalized sewer, helping less developed countries to adopt strict environmental regulations and above all to enforce them, avoiding that corruption decapitates their effectiveness.

Second, it is necessary to intercept plastic waste before it reaches the sea, using waste containment networks near narrowing areas, bends or at the mouth of rivers.

Each floating plastic waste interception solution must be customized according to local needs, such as vessel traffic, fish life, currents, etc. .

Then there are small boats equipped with systems for collecting waste on the surface, which travel along the stretches of river where the presence of waste is greatest, so as to help and support the work of the networks.

Third concerns the floating islands, a task by contradiction, theoretically simpler, since there is a delimited and circumscribed area in which it would be It is possible to collect the floating plastic, but, on the other hand, the dimensions of these islands are so large that the work is certainly problematic and demanding.

The union of the three activities, contrasting the introduction of new quantities of floating plastic waste into rivers, better filtering systems for civil and industrial waste to intercept microplastics and, finally, an international, coordinated and continuous action to clean up the waste present in the seas and oceans, would lead to great results for the health of the seas and oceans.

Who has to do it and who has to finance it

This issue was purposely left for last, as, as always, when it comes to politics and money, it becomes difficult to find shared shares, even sometimes it is not even possible to face the problem at international tables.

I believe that a new approach to the vision of environmental deficits must be created, seeing the earth as a shared environment, considering that the action of a country can negatively affect everyone's life, as is, in large part, that of discharging waste upstream, into rivers, which then affects the oceans and seas all over the world.

A supranational problem must be managed by a group of allied countries, which come together to find shared solutions and financing, which have the authority to make decisions for the good of all and we also have the tools to enforce them.

But, above all, it takes the political will to do it, minds, technologies and money are not enough if the will and foresight of an assembly is lacking international politician.

Money and power since the darkest times of history man have governed the minds of men, but today, if we don't take the shot that can guarantee us survival in harmony with the environment, there will no longer be a reason to talk about it and to act.

Ah, I forgot, it is not by eliminating the production of plastic or by believing in the proclamations of currents of thought such as that of "Plastic free" that problems are solved..

Machine translation, We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.