Juan González Summer |
Geneva (EFE)
According to the Swiss association OceanEye, every year 55 tons of plastic pollutants invisible to the human eye are dumped into the lake, an amount equivalent to the weight of seventy Swiss cows.
Tires produce most of these small particles (30 tons), but the rest of the microplastics come from packaging, textiles, and construction materials.
Switzerland and France share 156 kilometers of coastline around Geneva, where approximately one million people live, distributed in cities such as Geneva or Lausanne and in dozens of small towns that in summer take advantage of the lake as the main tourist attraction and turn its shores into lake beaches .
Microplastics affect those who live near the lake
“Fauna and flora are the first to be affected by microplastics,” OceanEye spokesperson Laurianne Trimoulla said in an interview with EFE, warning that many of the fish that ingest these polluting materials will later serve as food for humans.
The association has not been able to determine if these microplastics are also found in the drinking water consumed daily by families living in the area.
OceanEye warns that this situation is not exclusive to Lake Geneva and may be much worse in other parts of the world where waste management facilities are less efficient than in Switzerland.
An exhibition titled “Plastic Léman” – organized by OceanEye, the Nyon Geneva Museum and photographer Nicolas Lieber at the Natural History Museum in Geneva – puts the spotlight on how microplastics are present in the water they pollute throughout the world. its course, from the alpine lakes to the ocean, through the rivers.
In Lake Geneva, the concentration of plastic fragments is 41.6 grams per square kilometer, an amount much higher than that estimated in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean.
plastic pollution
According to OceanEye, every year 400 million tons of plastics are produced worldwide, 8% of the world’s oil production.
The United Nations Organization estimates that this figure could be multiplied by four in the next three decades, which would mean that, far from decreasing, the presence of microplastics in freshwater spaces increases each year.
The exhibition shows that pollution is greater at the ends of the lake, where more people reside and where the course of the Rhône carries a greater amount of waste into and out of Geneva.
Each Swiss consumes 125 kilograms of plastic per year, of which about 90 kilos is thrown away. More than half come from packaging and wrapping.
Only Ireland surpasses the Swiss country as a producer of plastic waste and both exceed the European Union average by more than 20 kilograms per person.
Are there solutions?
In the first place, people, who should make every effort to recycle and reuse plastics as far as possible.
For its part, OceanEye asks politicians to “do their job and strengthen the rules that limit the use of plastics by companies.”
Corporations are precisely the third actor involved in this matter and the NGO urges them to reduce the plastic they use in many of their products.
The future of lakes and rivers around the world depends on their joint actions, including the waters of Switzerland’s most iconic lake, which are at risk of becoming cloudy forever.
