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European rivers are filled with microplastics: this is revealed by a 6 -year mission carried out by the Tara Ocean Foundation. An alarming observation, especially in Spain.
The scourge reserved for oceans were believed. But microplastics, these fragments invisible to the naked eye, also suffocate our rivers. After 6 years of study and 2,700 samples, the Tara Ocean Foundation sounds the alarm: not a European watercourse is spared, from the Garonne to the Elbe. This is what its report published on Monday, April 7, is learned in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.
In each cubic meter of water, there are up to three large (from 0.5 mm to 5 mm) detected microplastic. The Seine alone would carries 900 per second. But this is only the surface of the problem since the smallest particles, 1,000 times more numerous, sneak everywhere, from the bottom of rivers to our food chains. They also serve rafts for pathogenic bacteria, like that found in the Loire, capable of provoking otitis, infections, even sepsis.
And in Spain?
In Spain, only the Ebre river was analyzed by the Foundation, and for good reason: it is one of the most important in the country and the most representative, since it crosses the country from West to East, before throwing itself into the Mediterranean. Moreover, in the Ebre, the sedimentation rate is high, explains Lorenzo Proia, coordinator of the research unit in ecology at the University of Vic: “The particularity of the ebre is its tanks [au nombre de 7, ndlr]which work as retention points of materials, whether organic or plastic. We also have a fairly low flow, which increases the sedimentation rate and therefore brings more microplastics to the sea. »
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Photo: from bauglir
As early as 2019, when scientists first analyzed plastics at the bottom of the ebre, they revealed an average concentration of 300 microplastics per kilogram of sediment, filaments or fibers being the most abundant. A rate equivalent to other European rivers.
These are these fibers, among others, which must be wary of, continues the professor: “Microplastics are made up of our urban waste, of course, but also the fibers of our clothes, and to a lesser extent of the products used in agriculture. »» The solution, therefore, would not necessarily be to be found in the rivers itself but on land, explains the report of Tara Ocean, enjoining to stop the production of plastics from the factory.
But aggravating circumstances also exist after this manufacturing. The researcher notably points to the failures of treatment plants, in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, “These stations were designed in the 1990s, where microplastics and global warming were not part of the vocabulary”he continues, explaining that in period of heavy rains, wastewater overflows and pour plastics directly into rivers. But the expert remains optimistic: “When the sources are multiple, it is difficult to stop. But when we identify weaknesses such as treatment plants, we can equip ourselves. Technology can still. »»
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