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Sailing ship »Manta« (simulation):
Minimal carbon footprint
Photo: theseacleaners.org
Anyone who has sailed around the world on a six-meter-long sports catamaran without a cabin, companion and GPS tracking system within two years, capsizes over 300 times and still reaches their destination alive, is not afraid of challenges.
And so, after his world record sailing trip a good five years ago, the Swiss Yvan Bourgnon dared to embark on an adventure with an even more uncertain outcome: ridding the oceans of plastic waste.
Scientists estimate that 270,000 tons of plastic are currently floating on the surface of the oceans.
The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Whirlpool northeast of Hawaii alone, according to estimates, covers an area about four and a half times the size of Germany.
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Circumnavigator and environmental activist Yvan Bourgnon
Photo: Martin Bureau / afp
Only nine percent of the world's plastic is recycled.
Most of it is burned and disposed of in rubbish dumps - or the plastic ends up in the sea.
There it not only threatens marine ecosystems because animals eat it or injure themselves.
The garbage can also be found thousands of meters below ground to form microplastic, and toxic or hormonally active substances can get back to people via the food chain.
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