Environmental pollution continues to affect the seas and oceans as well as many living spaces. In the past months, many sea creatures have been damaged due to the mucilage problem in the Marmara Sea. This time, it was announced that the wastes in the Mediterranean harm sea turtles.
With the melting of the glaciers, it continued to exist on the beaches of the Mediterranean. In the last 70 years; The lives of sea turtles are endangered due to global climate changes, oil spills, pollution from thermal power plants and plastic waste.
95% of the waste thrown into the sea consists of plastic materials.
Studies show that there are 1.25 million pieces of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters in one kilometer in the Mediterranean. This means that 95 percent of discarded waste is plastic. Hatay Samandağ, which hosts thousands of sea turtle nests every year, continues to struggle with increasing plastic pollution. Unfortunately, the wastes of the countries that have a coast on the Mediterranean continue to come to the Mediterranean coasts via the Orontes River.
Dead sea turtles have plastic in their stomachs
Every year, hundreds of sea turtles lose their lives by mistaking the waste floating in the sea for food. Advisor to the Green Sea Turtle Conservation Project, Assoc. Dr. Bektaş Sönmez stated that they detected plastic in the digestive system of 20-25 of 50 dead turtles. He also stated that some of the puppies that came out of their nests could not reach the sea by getting caught in the garbage and they became food for other animals.
In order not to endanger the lives of sea turtles and other creatures, let’s throw our garbage in the garbage and recycling bins. Let’s protect the ecological balance. Let’s not use single-use plastic as much as possible.