According to scientists in 14 studies recently published simultaneously, “alarming” levels of microplastic has been found in major rivers across Europe.
“The pollution is present in all European rivers” studied, said French scientist Jean-Francois Ghiglione, who coordinated the large-scale operation across nine major rivers from the Thames to the Tiber. “Alarming” pollution of on average “three microplastics per cubic meter of water” was observed in all of them, according to the results published in the journal of Environmental Science and Pollution Research.
That is far from the 40 microplastics per cubic meter recorded in the world’s 10 most polluted rivers – the Yellow River, Yangtze, Mekong, Ganges, Nile, Niger, Indus, Amur, Pearl, and Hai – which irrigate countries where most plastic is produced or plastic waste is processed, but it does not take into account the volume of water flowing.
“The mass of microplastics invisible to the naked eye is more significant than that of the visible ones,” said Ghiglione, head of research in marine microbial ecotoxicology at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Microplastics are less than five millimeters in size, smaller than a grain of rice, with the smallest invisible to the naked eye. These include synthetic textile fibers from washing clothes and those released from car tires or when unscrewing plastic bottle caps.
“The international scientific coalition we are part of (as part of international UN negotiations on reducing plastic pollution) is calling for a major reduction in the production of primary plastic because we know that plastic production is directly linked to pollution,” he said.
The severity of the microplastics problem being encountered in Europe, as confirmed by scientists, gives Filipinos an idea of how bad the situation could be in our own waterways, and given that our country is among the worst in the world as far as plastic pollution is concerned, we can expect it to be so much worse for us.
The Europeans want to do something about microplastics. Are the Filipinos who are literally wallowing in it willing to take action as well?*
