The amount of plastic in European waters has almost doubled in the past decade, according to newly published research.
The research shows a “steep increase” in marine plastic on Europe’s seabeds, with the number of plastic items detected per square kilometre in the northeast Atlantic increasing from 20 to 35 between 2012 and 2021.
The findings have been released by SEAwise, an international project working towards the effective implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management in Europe.
The project’s report comes just days after UN talks on tackling plastic waste ended in Paris with an agreement to draft a global plastics treaty by November.
The research was led by the Italian research institute COISPA, and the SEAwise team analysed data from fishing hauls around Europe to estimate changes in the amount of litter on the seafloor over time and identify marine litter hotspots.
Data from the Baltic Sea through to the northeast Atlantic and from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean showed that plastic is “by far the most prevalent form of marine litter”.
It found that up to 90% of hauls in the northeast Atlantic and Baltic included plastic, with trawls five times more likely to bring up an item made of plastic than other waste materials such as glass, metal or rubber.
Plastic poses a threat to marine wildlife, most commonly by entanglement or ingestion – with the latter also having implications for human welfare, the project points out.
“Though mandated under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), measures for acceptable litter levels–or threshold values–are still lacking around Europe,” the report states.
Prof Dave Reid of the Marine Institute of Ireland, said that trawl surveys showed that in most areas (around half) the plastic litter mainly comes from commercial fishing activity.
The full report is available here
For more information about SEAwise here
