The TV crew of British ITV, Britain’s largest private channel, traveled from London to the Aegean Sea, to visit the research base of the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation in Samos Island. The crew’s goal is to produce reports for the newscast and other ITV broadcasts on the worrying extent of global plastic pollution in the sea as documented in Archipelagos’ long term research.
The TV crew collaborated with Archipelagos’ researchers working at the Microplastics Laboratory as well as with scientists from the Marine Conservation Research Group, with whom they completed a series of sampling and analyses.
Over the past 9 years, the Institute has been implementing a major effort to quantify and highlight the dimensions of the problem of plastic pollution in the Greek seas, while the results of this ongoing research are constantly published in scientific journals and conferences.
In recent years, Archipelagos, in collaboration with other European institutions, has been undertaking a targeted effort to systemically lobby European authorities on worrying environmental issues. It is very encouraging that, even with a long delay, the European authorities have begun to make preliminary decisions (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-3927_en.htm) to reduce the huge plastic footprint of European citizens. These new decisions are positive, but they are far from the drastic measures that need to be taken if we really want to tackle the problem of environmental pollution and seas from plastics.
See below two interesting recent TV productions regarding plastic pollution in our seas and oceans:
From ERT1 -> http://webtv.ert.gr/ert1/roads/09mai2018-roads/
And VICE GREECE -> https://www.antenna.gr/watch/1190143/vice-specials-plastiko-apo-ta-rafia-toy-soypermarket-eos-to-bytho-tis-thalassas-
In conclusion, we must once again point out that we are currently facing a very serious and global problem of plastic pollution which we are all responsible for through the inexorable use and unacceptable management of plastic. Responsibility weighs exclusively on our generations and to reverse the heavy plastic footprint of our everyday life, drastic interventions are required, while wishful thinking and beautified campaigns are not enough.
