The Environment: Enough Already!
“This is one of the most ecologically preserved places in Europe! This is the place where the colors of sun-washed Mediterranean meet the calm and freshness of the mountains and the soothing gold of rich Pannonian soil…” This, at least, is what you can read on the website of Croatian National Tourist Board which also invites you to sail the azure Adriatic Sea and cosmically become one with the dolphins and the Mediterranean monk seal.
Such Arcadian vision has been not a little distorted by the contamination of the coastline of Pelješac and the Mljet Canal. Hundreds of square kilometers of apocalyptic heaps of trash, catheters, needles, carcasses, and loads of plastic have defiled apparently “virgin beaches” of Korčula, Mljet, and Pelješac. “Fortunately it happened out of season!” is what they’re probably saying at CNTB and sighing with relief, for how would they sell virginity if it isn’t there? After all, it isn’t our trash (it seems it never is) – it’s Albanian or Montenegrin, so the finger of blame can easily be pointed in some other way than our way. That’s what the Ministry of Environmental Protection did when it shifted responsibility over the “environmental incident” to National Protection and Rescue Directorate which, in turn, shifted responsibility to Dubrovnik Port Authority. Does it rally matter in whose domain the problem is?
The East-Adriatic Sea current has been rather favorable up until now, taking away our trash (that triples during the money-winning season) counter-clockwise and delivering it to our neighboring Italy. That put a smile on our faces and motivated us to deem our coastline the cleanest around and to compare it to Italy’s east coast which, heavily polluted by the river Po, simply cannot sustain tourism.
Sometimes, the current can run clockwise, mostly in a symbolic way, and that seems to be the only way nature can strike back. No one is without blame in this story because people are those who are producing non-biodegradable trash. We produce 10 billion tons of trash annually, and we recycle 40 percent. Plastic is the worst because it comes to about 90 million tons, 10 percent of which ends up in the oceans – that’s 9 million tons! Seventy percent of all trash sinks to the bottom, while the rest floats around until ocean currents take it on a spin to meet up with the trash of other nations.
Although we don’t see it, the non-biodegradable trash has got to be somewhere, and that’s where the exaggerated example of the Great Pacific Trash Vortex comes into play. It’s the world’s biggest vortex uniting the South-Pacific, Californian, South-Equatorial, and Kuroshio currents. The area covered in trash is as big as Texas and was discovered unintentionally, rather Columbusesqe, 13 years ago. Extremely high levels of polymers (molecules of plastic) at the surface of the sea pointed to the photo-degradation of plastic as the only way for it to break down into molecules. Unlike organic refuse which is biodegradable, synthetic material can never disintegrate. Cleaning such an area is impossible because of three things: its vast size, the amount of money needed, and the fact that microparticles cannot really be cleaned. The effect on plant and animal life is devastating; albatrosses are dying because they keep mistaking plastic stopples for edible food; toxic polymer particles find their way into fish, which in turn find their way to our tables. What is even more frightening is that another four such areas are found in world oceans, and scientist see them expanding on a daily basis.
It’s clear that the problem is out of our focus. We can hardly criticize the amount of plastic and non-biodegradable materials in our environment when we’re the ones using plastic devices, laptops, television sets, plastic bags, bottles… Environmental awareness in view of recycling still hasn’t reached the level of daily hygiene – it’ll probably happen when the problem hits us on the head. A step back in Croatia is the new Proposition to evaluate accordance with the Constitution and the Package and Waste Act which, if adopted, would mean the end of charging 50 lipas for PET bottles – we can easily imagine trash piling up in public places if that happens.
All land has been discovered, all land has been contaminated. What’s left is to discover new continents – those made from our own trash.
Foto: Jutarnji.hr; / Wikipedia
