Lake Geneva's plastic pollution as high as world's oceans

Bangkok Post Group

Geneva-based non-profit Oceaneye has discovered that the plastic pollution levels in one of Europe's largest freshwater bodies, Lake Geneva, also known as Leman Lake, is just as high as in the world's oceans. - REUTERS

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00:00 Switzerland's Lake Geneva has a reputation for its clean water.

00:06 It sits at the foot of the Alps and looks postcard ready.

00:09 But it turns out plastic pollution here is just as severe as the world's oceans.

00:15 So how did one of Europe's largest lakes become so polluted?

00:20 Ocean Eye, a Geneva-based non-profit, has been collecting plastics from oceans for more

00:25 than a decade.

00:27 But in 2018, they turned their attention closer to home and conducted their first study in

00:33 Lake Geneva.

00:34 "That's Pascal Hagman, Ocean Eye's founder.

00:41 On the stern of a sailing boat, he's using a device to help collect different types of

00:46 plastics.

00:47 There are microplastics, which are small particles of bigger objects, and mesoplastics, which

00:53 are bigger fragments.

00:55 Hagman says tire residue is the major pollutant, followed by food packaging, and that the plastics

01:01 that end up here aren't just a Switzerland problem, it's a global one.

01:06 As Lake Geneva borders France, and its water eventually flows into the Mediterranean Sea.

01:11 "A whole part of that waste comes from people's incivility, people who don't put their waste

01:16 in a trash can, who ditch them in nature or leave trash overflowing.

01:20 And that plastic waste is what we're finding in Lake Geneva."

01:24 Hagman says projections are pessimistic, and that if the world continues to produce plastic

01:29 at the current rate, we'll produce more than one billion tons of it per year.

01:36 But on the brighter side, he says awareness of the issue is growing.

01:40 "When we began working on plastic 12 years ago, we talked about plastic particles in

01:45 water.

01:46 People took us for wackos.

01:47 And now, it is a recognizable problem."

01:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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