Main image via Facebook
Bluer skies don’t always mean brighter days and calm oceans don’t always hold pretty creatures.
It’s saddening to know that even with all the humans staying in, the Earth is still not safe from pollution. Conservationists warn that ‘COVID-waste’ as described by Joffrey Peltier, who is working under a French NGO called Opération Mer Propre, that are being dumped into the oceans might harm the sea creatures drastically.
Although things may look calm and pretty on the surface level, divers have found dozens of gloves, facemasks and bottles of hand sanitizers beneath the Mediterranean Sea!
Image via Facebook
The alarming number might have been caused by the single use of plastic, ever since the deadly virus hit us worldwide.
In the years leading up to the pandemic, environmentalists warn that marine life could be under a major threat. Plastic alone can take up to 20 years to degrade in the ocean and let’s keep in mind that’s not the only thing thrown in there. Here’s an idea of how many years anything we throw in the oceans could take to biodegrade.
There you go- our action of throwing takes only seconds but the marine life has to suffer with it for hundreds of years!
The group hopes that these images will prompt people to stop polluting the oceans, or else we shouldn’t be surprised to see facemasks instead of jellyfish in the sea.
Image via Facebook
Image via Facebook
Image via Facebook
A few ways we can stop the use of plastic is by embracing reusable masks and swap latex gloves for more frequent handwashing.
What about the PPE worn by medical staff, you may wonder? Well, for now in the UK, incineration remains a solution just because reusing them would take a lot of chemical cleaning, which may have other environmental impacts.
However, let’s not ask what everyone else is doing. Let’s start with ourselves. A small sacrifice and change will help the oceans in a great way. So start today because together, we can do so much.
After all, we only have one Earth, right?
Info via The Guardian + The Jakarta Post
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