WHAKAARO: Oceans under threat

SUBMITTED BY CLIVE BARKER

World Ocean Day was celebrated on 8 June 2023. One ocean, one climate, one future – together. Never in the history of our planet has the ocean been under such unprecedented threat from humankind's actions. The evil twins: microplastics and ocean warming.

The oceans, being all interconnected, are in effect one. Together they cover 71 per cent of the planet’s surface, absorb 93 per cent of the heat, and 30 per cent of carbon generated by human actions. Add to this two-thirds of the annual 460 million tonnes of plastic that ends up in our oceans and other waterways.

What are the solutions?

Firstly, we must understand the problem. Plastic pollution, while already a scourge today, is a time bomb for the future. In nature, microplastics are found in our food, in the ice of the North Pole, and in the fish navigating the deepest recesses of the ocean. In humans, microplastics have been detected in blood, breast milk, and placentas.

While world governments debate, the wealthy OPEC countries (all of which have large petrochemical industries) do not wish to cut production. However, a ban on singleuse plastics is essential. The other is the washing machine production of microplastics.

Once, our clothes were made from natural fibres like wool and cotton. Now they are almost entirely produced from plasticbased materials like polyesters, rayon, nylon, and acrylic. When washed, synthetic clothing sheds tiny fragments we now know as microplastics.

A study by Ocean Wise estimated the average household in the USA and Canada releases 533 million microfibres (130g) to wastewater each year, not counting the fibres lost into the environment during drying. Once there, it is difficult to clean up. What you can do: use microfilters in the washing discharge water cycle, and go back to wool, cotton, hemp, and other