* Seabirds in Mauritania - Photograph: Pierre Gleizes/ Greenpeace
Click to read the article in Turkish
According to "A Mediterranean Full of Plastic" report released by Greenpeace, plastics were present in 92.8 percent of the samples collected from the Mediterranean Sea in 2013. Moreover, the Mediterranean basin has one piece of plastic waste per four kilometers.
This high density of plastic waste in Mediterranean is mostly caused by single-use plastics that we use for two minutes just to throw them in the dustbin shortly after. The European Union (EU) introduced an EU-wide ban on single-use plastics such as plastic eating utensils and straws, foam food and beverage containers on December 20, 2018.
After the agreement came into force, the member countries would be obliged to adapt their legislatures to the articles of the agreement in two years. Each member country would amend its constitution to ban the single-use plastics as stipulated by the agreement. Accordingly, Greenpeace Mediterranean request the introduction of a similar ban in Turkey.
'They don't dissolve in nature for hundreds of years'
Greenpeace Mediterranean Project Director Deniz Bayram has stated the following about the issue:
"We need to take immediate action to struggle against plastic pollution, because the plastics that we use for two minutes just to throw away in the dustbin do not dissolve in nature for hundreds of years. Our seas are not in a condition to tolerate more plastics. European Union has banned the manufacture of these unnecessary plastics, including straws and plastic eating utensils.
"150 thousand people whosigned our project in Turkey say, 'We don't need single-use plastics.' The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization should act as required by the zero-waste policy and introduce this ban in Turkey, thereby adding Turkey to the list of countries pioneering the struggle against plastics. We should do it for a Turkey surrounded by seas, not plastics."
5 key facts about plastic pollution
* Protest against plastics in Italy - Photograph: Lorenzo Moscia/ Greenpeace
Click here for further facts about plastic pollution Source: greenpeace.org/usa |
Click here to give signature to the Greenpeace project
(PT/SD)
