An estimated 300 million tons of plastic are found in the world’s oceans, thrown by people. But the plastic is not just floating on the surface. It is even inside the stomachs of crustaceans that live on the deepest ocean floor, Sacramento Bee reported.
The extent of plastic invasion demonstrates how far humans have damaged the ecology with their wrong sanitation habits. The only directions where the plastic thrown into the ocean would end are washed back on the shore or sank to the deep sea, Dr. Alan Jamieson, a professor in marine ecology at Newcastle University in the UK, said.
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These two places are the only destinations for the plastic, he said. The team analyzed all kinds of animals from the Marianas Trench, the deepest in the…show more content… Deposit-return schemes
To reduce the amount of plastic being thrown away, many end up in the oceans, the UK started to consider in November a deposit-return scheme for plastic bottles. Ministers in London, the Scottish, and Welsh regional governments are also looking how to do it, UN Environment reported.
About 1 million plastic bottles are purchased around the world every minute. To avert further plastic pollution, the UN is pushing for the reduction of its use and the introduction of more refillable bottles as well as collecting single-use bottles for safe disposal or recycling.
By guaranteeing the collection of very high-quality material, used bottles can be profitably recycled into new ones instead of a lower-grade use, Mauro Anastacio, of the European Environmental Bureau, said. The Bureau is a network of 140 organizations that presses for greener policies across Europe.
The recycling of bottles is an example of a resource-efficient green economy approach that UN Environment is promoting to boost the sustainability of production and consumption, Anastacio