MARINE POLLUTION
Being a part of the maritime industry, which has a major impact on environmental pollution, carries certain responsibilities and make us strive to spread consciousness and foster solutions to prevent further development of adverse effects on humans and the environment.
Maritime industry generates many negative impacts on the environment; air pollution from gas emissions, and sea pollutions from ballast water, oil and chemical spills.
Eventually, negative impacts have been reduced adopting MARPOL, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, and additionally by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) which provides various instruments to protect the marine environment from shipping activities.
Today, the environment is facing major pollution issues caused by discharge and overproduction of litter, particularly plastic waste.
Marine pollution is a combination of chemicals and litter, washed or blown into the ocean from land sources.
This pollution poses dangers to both humans and animals. Marine trash encompasses all manufactured products and most of them are plastic items like shopping bags and beverage bottles, along with bottle caps, food wrappers, cigarette butts and fishing gear.
Plastic waste is particularly problematic due to abundance and resistance to degradation. Once plastics break down into micro-plastics and drift throughout the water column in the open ocean, they are virtually impossible to recover.
Eight million metric tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans each year. It is believed that by 2050, ocean plastic will outweigh all of the ocean’s fish.
Solutions for marine pollution include prevention and cleanup. Raising awareness and changing society’s approach to single-use plastic is a long and economically challenging process.
