Debris Drop-Off
Plastic Bag
Deterrents Working in European Waters
Rich
Carey/Shutterstock.com
A new study shows
that there are significantly fewer plastic bags on the seafloor since a number
of European countries introduced fees on them, according to a 25-year study
from the UK government’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture
Science (CEFAS).
Researchers saw an
estimated 30 percent drop in the number of plastic bags in waters around
Norway, Germany, northern France and Ireland.
“It is encouraging to see that
efforts by all of society, whether the public, industry, non-government
organizations or government, to reduce plastic bags are having an effect,”
says
Thomas Maes,
a marine litter scientist at CEFAS.
“We also observed sharp
declines in the percentage of plastic bags captured by fishing nets trawling
the seafloor around the UK compared to 2010, and this research suggests that by
working together, we can reduce, reuse and recycle to tackle the marine litter
problem.”
This article appears
in the October 2018 issue of Natural Awakenings.
More
from Natural Awakenings
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