Our Greenweek donation for the environment - we want clean oceans!
We have announced you to donate money to an environmental organization in the course of the Tattoosafe Greenweek. That's what we have done now - 1.500 Euro go to everwave from Aachen. In this blog we will briefly introduce you to the problems our oceans are facing, who everwave is and which impressive projects have already been implemented. You can find more info on everwave.de.
The problem: Every minute, a truckload of trash ends up in our oceans.
Every year, more than 11 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans. This has a devastating impact not only on underwater life, but on the entire environment, the economy, and ultimately on all of us. We humans created the problem. Through our behaviors and consumption, we ingest tens of thousands of plastic particles per year, including through our food, clothing and hygiene. This, in turn, can have an impact on our lives.
Our oceans are contaminated by nearly invisible mountains of trash. This plastic waste threatens biodiversity and the lives of all marine life. The food webs and habitats of animals are being massively disrupted. To this day, it is not always clear where the plastic particles we see in the ocean actually come from. For a long time, researchers thought they were fragments of larger plastic objects that had broken off at sea. However, the reality is more complex and the impact on the environment is probably much stronger than it seems at first glance.
As early as the 1970s, microplastics were proven to be a known pollutant by several studies. At that time, large quantities of synthetic fibers and plastic fragments were found in the North Atlantic. It is all the more astonishing that even today it is not always clear where these particles come from in the first place.
Rivers - Global Garbage Highways
Recent research shows that rivers are the main transport route for all pollution in our oceans. Many European rivers, for example, have been shown to be contaminated with microplastics.
In the delta of the Ebro, one of the largest rivers in the Iberian Peninsula, a study found that the river pumps 2.2 billion pieces of microplastics into the Mediterranean Sea every year - and that is the European average! There are also more extreme cases near densely populated areas, such as the Pearl River Delta near Guangzhou in China. There, researchers* reported concentrations ranging from 379 to 7,924 per cubic meter of surface water. By comparison, 3 to 108 particles per cubic meter were reported in the French Seine River six years ago.
When we speak of trash in the ocean, we are referring to pretty much all long-lived, manufactured or processed persistent materials that are discharged into the marine environment by humans. Including the transport routes via rivers, canals, wind and air. In addition to rubber, metal, glass, wood or paper, no other material plays such a striking role as plastics - with a share of over 75 percent. Symptomatic of today's throwaway society, plastics can be easily and quickly industrially produced and processed, and are often given away cheaply or even free of charge. 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of waste per year find their way into our oceans. Converted: One truckload per minute!
How can this be?
- # inadequate waste management, e.g. in the Southeast Asian region as well as in emerging and developing countries.
- # low recycling rates especially in countries without landfill bans (also in many European member states)
- # high production rates and intensive plastic consumption
- # lack of producer responsibility in various countries
- # lack of environmental education, lack of awareness for consequences of careless waste disposal
- # short life cycle of many products & longevity of plastic material
- # invisible mountains of waste
- # It can take centuries for plastic material to be broken down by physical, chemical and biological processes in the oceans. In addition, wind, waves and currents ensure that trash can be transported and dispersed over long distances. Around 30 percent of this trash floats on the water surface or washes up on coasts. That means up to 70 percent is in the water or on the ocean floor.
- # In addition to Asia's coasts and the Mediterranean Sea (also called "Plastic Soup"), there are five other zones around the world where the majority of plastic waste, most of which has already been ground up, collects in trash eddies. Two in the Pacific, two in the Atlantic and one in the Indian Ocean. The largest known plastic garbage vortex to date is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), which is about 4.5 times the size of Germany.
Who is everwave?
everwave wants to solve this problem and is therefore committed to closing the plastic loop. The focus: waste collection - recycling - environmental education.
Scientists, engineers, architects and ocean lovers work in Aachen, partly full-time and partly on a voluntary basis, on the conception and implementation of projects to collect waste from our oceans. With a lot of commitment and heart and soul!
On cleanup missions around the world, everwave collects tons of trash with the innovative HiveX river platform and the efficient CollectiX trash collection boat. Both technologies prevent waste from entering oceans. A research team is working to ensure that the collected trash is recycled through environmentally friendly processes. To this end, efforts are being made to cooperate with local recycling companies during operations, which sort, wash and shred the material. In this way, it will be returned to the cycle in the future. An education team also raises public awareness of the plastic challenge and develops valuable materials for environmental education in schools.
HiveX is an innovative stationary platform system. It diverts and safely stores plastic waste with a passive internal architecture using the river's currents. Thanks to its modular design, the platform can be deployed in different rivers around the world with high efficiency. HiveX is extremely versatile and a low-tech (opposite of high-tech, meaning the deliberate abandonment of expensive complicated technology and the use of simple operating principles), but also very robust solution that can be used in most rivers, for example in Southeast Asia or in Sub-Saharan Africa - also in interaction with the CollectiX waste collection boats. In short, the stationary system can collect river waste continuously, in an energy-efficient and environmentally friendly manner.
The CollectiX waste collection boats have no lesser task than to rid the earth's waters of plastic and masses of waste. Living creatures and plants are affected by the garbage and CollectiX starts exactly there and actively fights water pollution. With approximately 20 tons of trash collection per day, the manpower of a single boat is impressive. A drone supports each trash collection boat and identifies trash hotspots, while the boats themselves are equipped with sensors that can analyze trash smartly thanks to artificial intelligence. In this way, everwave not only collects trash, but also detailed data on its composition.
Text and photo source: everwave
Tattoosafe says thank you for the remarkable effort!
@everwave: You guys are doing a great job helping the environment gain a foothold against the vehement masses of trash.
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