Our oceans are choking

message from Green peace

The Mediterranean Sea is choking on plastic. An estimated average of 8 million tonnes of plastic enter our seas worldwide every year.

Together we can help change this story. Globally only 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling. In the case of the EU, no more than 30% of post-consumer plastic waste was recycled in 2014. The rest was either landfilled or incinerated. These figures don’t even account for all the plastic litter abandoned in the environment, much of which ends up in the ocean. Our current waste management system is insufficient. With a dumpster truck full of plastic pouring into our oceans and seas every minute of every day, we know this problem is huge, and we need to tackle it at its source.

This problem isn’t going to go away unless companies rapidly phase out throwaway plastic while developing new delivery systems based on refill and reuse, and politicians must set the legal basis to promote these avenues. Europe is the second largest plastic manufacturer in the world - which means that this is not only Europe's problem. EU environmental ministers are revising the EU waste laws right now: We must demand a shift in mindsets and innovation.

People from all over the world are asking EU ministers to ensure EU Laws give Member States the flexibility to adopt national measures and create market restrictions to reduce the main sources of littering, including single use plastic packaging.

Please, ask EU environmental ministers to STOP the PLASTIC INVASION:

www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/detox/what-you-can-do/No-Plastic/