which many wastewater treatment plants are unable to filter out or which end up on farm fields as sludge From an overall perspective environmental experts expect a change in consumer attitudes and behaviors to have the greatest impact on controlling and reducing the flood of plastics As well as generally choosing not to buy products packaged and wrapped in plastics this includes the use of returnable packaging and reusable tableware at events according to Greenpeace However a lot of ed ucation and information is necessary to bring about this change in thinking Especially in countries such as Indo nesia Vietnam or China from where particularly large amounts of waste get into the oceans knowledge and the requisite technology are often lacking The German marine biologist Dr Mareike Huhn for example has dedicated herself to changing this sit uation For five years she has been personally active in educating the population on the Indonesian Banda Islands about disposing of garbage With her Banda Sea organization she has not only established a type of garbage collection system but also provides envi ronmental education to the local population because the inhabitants of these scenic spice islands urgently is the time it takes for a fishing line to fully dissolve in water 450 years for a PET bottle 50 years for a styrofoam cup and 20 years for a plastic bag 600 years as large as Germany is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch northeast of Hawaii 80 000 metric tons 88 000 short tons of plastic are concentrated there in an area of 1 6 million km2 618 000 square miles 4 5 times have to change their ways For centuries says the Ger man activist they ve been used to disposing of their previously biodegradable garbage in the ocean Obviously such practices are problematic in the age of plastic packaging Cleaning collecting To keep plastic waste from suffocating the oceans smaller and larger initiatives and organizations around the world are providing First Aid While some of them are looking for ways to skim plastic parts off the ocean surface in large scale cleanup projects using in novative technology others are ridding the beaches of discarded plastic bottles and plastic sandals washed ashore by tedious albeit efficient manual work The most commonly known and ambitious ocean cleanup projects include The Ocean Cleanup and Pacific Garbage Screening PGS Initiator of The Ocean Cleanup is the 24 year old Dutchman Boyan Slat who as early as in his high school days was shocked by the huge amounts of garbage he encountered while snorkeling in coastal waters of Greece His idea Garbage floating in the upper five me ters 16 feet of the water surface is to be trapped by means of V shaped floating arms aspirated by a plat form anchored on the bottom of the sea and subsequently recycled The maritime gar bage collector is intended to use the current of ocean ic whirlpools to drive the garbage into the system s tentacles First field tests here and now 67

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