It is a warning cry. Plastic pollution has reached “all parts of the oceans” and threatens marine biodiversity “from the smallest plankton to the largest whale”, warned the WWF on Tuesday, calling for a rapid commitment to a treaty on plastics. Because between 19 and 23 million tonnes of plastic arrive each year in the waters of the planet, a good part of which ends up at sea, according to estimates.
A 2021 study listed 386 species of fish that ingested plastic out of 555 tested. According to other scientists, up to 30% of a sample of cod caught in the North Sea had microplastics in the stomach. On the herring side, a study found microplastics in 17% of a sample caught in the Baltic Sea.
The products are largely single-use plastics, which more and more countries are banning but which still constitute more than 60% of marine pollution. They degrade as they stay in the water, becoming smaller and smaller, down to “nanoplastic” of a size less than a micrometer (thousandths of a millimeter).
A growing danger, even if the WWF recognizes a lack of data on the possible repercussions on humans of this presence of products with chemical components.