Plastic is fantastic – but the way we design, produce, and dispose of plastic products is not. On 16 January the EU published the new Plastics Strategy, to make plastics in Europe last longer, easier to collect, reuse & recycle. It also tackles the problem of lost fishing gear and ghost fishing.
The discarded, lost, or abandoned fishing nets are often called “ghost nets”, since they continue to catch fish and other marine animals without human involvement. Millions of marine animals, including sharks, dolphins, seals and turtles suffer and die because of entanglement in these nets.
Every year, some 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear are left in our seas and oceans. It’s plastic waste which remains in the seas for hundreds of years and doesn’t biodegrade.
We welcome the new EU’s Plastics Strategy, and hope that it will help to change this situation.
What do you think? Let your voice be heard and contribute to the discussions via this public consultation before 12 February: