Egypt, Italy and Turkey dump half of the plastic that pollutes the Mediterranean

Every year 229,000 tons of plastic end up in the Mediterranean.

It is one of the most forceful conclusions of the synthesis report prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) based on the existing scientific literature on a type of marine pollution that is increasing.

This organization warns that this amount can double in the next 20 years if measures are not put in place now, such as the prohibition of certain plastic products and the improvement of garbage treatment.

The study presented this Tuesday breaks down the estimates of plastic discharges from 33 countries in the Mediterranean basin, including Spain.

And it concludes that three of them - Egypt, Italy and Turkey - are responsible for more than half of the plastic that each year reaches this sea from land.

This is due, the IUCN points out, to the fact that in these countries there are “large amounts of mismanaged waste”, as well as “large coastal populations”.

The most voluminous problem is in the so-called macroplastics (such as bottles or bags), which represent 94% of the inputs of this pollutant to the Mediterranean.

6% of the remaining plastic dumped falls into the category of primary microplastics (the pieces of less than five millimeters that are used, for example, in cosmetics and textile products).

The dumping of macroplastics is fundamentally linked to the deficient treatment of garbage.

According to the IUCN, 67% of the waste in the Mediterranean basin is "poorly managed." And the most common means of "transport" to reach this sea are rivers, explains Julien Boucher, one of the authors of the report According to this analysis, the Nile is responsible for around 25% of all plastics entering the Mediterranean.

The rivers carry the garbage from the localities inland.

But from the coastal populations important discharges are also generated.

"Coastal areas are responsible for 30% and 35% of microplastic and macroplastic leaks, respectively."

The authors of the report have made a ranking of the 100 cities in the basin that dump the most macroplastics.

That list is headed by Muntazah, in Alexandria (Egypt), followed by Rome and Podgorica, the capitals of Italy and Montenegro, respectively.

The ranking of the hundred most polluting cities, in which no Spanish city appears, is dominated by Egypt.

"The countries with the lowest levels of waste treatment are the major contributors to landfills," explains Guillaume Billard, also author of the study.

If only the total volume of leaks is taken into account, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Algeria and Tunisia are the biggest contributors to plastic pollution in the Mediterranean.

But if discharges per capita are analyzed, the list is headed by Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria.

In both classifications, Spain occupies the last places of the 33 countries examined.

Microplastics

The study also analyzes primary microplastics, those pieces of less than five millimeters that are also dumped into the Mediterranean.

Of all these leaks, tire dust is the main source of spillage (53%), followed by textile microplastics (33%) and microbeads in cosmetics (12%).

The three countries that contribute the most are Italy, Egypt and Uganda, which is included in the report as other African countries, for being in the Nile basin. The list of the 10 cities that most pollute the sea with microplastics is headed by Rome, Milan and Turin.

Valencia, Zaragoza and Malaga also appear among those top 10 places.

Minna Epps, director of the IUCN world marine and polar program, stressed this Tuesday the great "potential for reducing discharges" of improved waste management.

The report also recommends extending the vetoes on plastic products: "A complete ban on plastic in the basin would reduce leakage by 23%."

In addition, the report is committed to curbing the entry into the sea of ​​discharges from rivers.

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