Environmental organizations call on governments to take drastic measures to combat plastic pellets
- The plastic pellets of the boat that lost the cargo on December 8 in the Portuguese Sea have already begun to reach Euskal Herria. Environmental organisations believe that “urgent and stringent measures” are needed because these microplastics are very dispersed.
A month ago a ship lost some of its cargo while navigating the Atlantic: In northern Portugal, a container fell into the water. According to the data provided by the ship's shipowner, the container contained a thousand bags of plastic pellets, and since each bag had 25 kilos, about 25 tonnes of plastic were released into the sea. Millions of plastic units under five millimeters have been reaching the Galician coast for weeks.
The following environmental organisations have included a common note: Greenpeace, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth, SEO/BirdLife and WWF. Among others, they call for coordination between administrations for their serious environmental impact and for their danger to human health. Marine currents have already spread plastic pellets rapidly and have reached Euskal Herria according to news released on Wednesday by NAIZ.
This situation has been described by environmental organizations as an “environmental crisis” and has demanded five clear demands from the Xunta de Galicia:
- Call for closer cooperation between administrations
- They ask for scientific rigor and transparency from the Xunta, who recalls “with pain” the Xunta’s lack of reaction to the stroke
- Better coordination and application of good practice in the removal of spillage
- Adequate long-term monitoring of environmental impact prevention
- Investigation and clarification of responsibilities
Citizen protests
The Noia Limpia association and other groups of citizens complain about the Galician government. They denounce that the government has not reacted in time and that it has not launched other resources to combat pollution, according to it Berria.Tambi they also denounce the lack of resources to help citizens who are doing cleaning on a voluntary basis.
As a protest, they have deposited bags of these plastic pellets that have been collected in front of one of the buildings of the Xunta de Compostela, and they wanted to highlight the number of people and hours that they have needed to clean their coastline. A card specifies that on Queiruga beach they have collected 25 kilos and have required 50 hours of voluntary work.
