Environmental action Fight against plastic waste in the ocean
Beuel · Greenpeace organised a clean-up action on the Beuel banks of the Rhine. An artwork will be made from plastic bottles to highlight the problem of plastic pollution during the Climate Conference.
It is amazing how much rubbish is lying around the Rhine. Volunteers from Greenpeace collected mountains of rubbish from the Beuel banks of the Rhine on Sunday lunchtime. Over 30 helpers spread out to the north and south of the China boat at the Kennedy Bridge to collect the rubbish. They collected everything from cigarette butts to discarded paper, bottle caps, tins and a large amount of plastic rubbish.
And there were some unusual items: they pulled a bike frame from the water, three chairs, a red and white bollard, the remnants of a shopping trolley, trousers, socks, shoes, underwear, a wallet with an EC card, money and a card showing the club membership of whoever lost it. “Someone got completely undressed there,” said the collectors. “First the clothes, then the underwear and finally they threw away the wallet.” Luckily the police came by at this precise moment to check the collection was being carried out correctly and the wallet could be handed over to them.
“We hadn’t counted on so much support from volunteers or on so much collected rubbish,” said Monika Biergans from Greepeace, who helped organise the rubbish collection. She had received rubbish bags and gloves from Bonnorange for the campaign, but more rubbish bags had to be obtained from private supplies. Bonnorange then collected the pile of rubbish in the afternoon.
But why all the effort? According to Greenpeace, 80 per cent of plastic waste goes into the sea from the land via rivers and beaches. This includes illegal rubbish and waste-water disposal and also tourism-related rubbish. “Our oceans are degenerating into end disposal sites for plastic. 300 million tons of plastic are produced each year worldwide. Of that, 10 per cent ends up in the sea and later on our plates again – in fish or other sea creatures. This harms our health and above all, nature,” explains Biergans. She continues: “Experts have predicted that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea. The plastic is washed into the sea from rivers like the Rhine, for example. We want to prevent this.”
Greenpeace has artist Menduri Raart on hand to make a whale out of the PET bottles. Biergans said he will float this in the Rhine during the Climate Conference to draw attention to the plastic waste situation. Requests to the Climate Conference will be put in the bottles. These requests can be sent via his Facebook page (“Menduriart”). She could not say what would happen with the requests. “It is more symbolic,” she explained.
Original text: Rainer Schmidt. Translated by Kate Carey.
