A scientific study, led by Professor Christian Schmidt of the University of Leipzig, recently showed that 90% of the decayed plastic in the oceans comes from just 10 rivers, or around 8 million tonnes per year. The ten rivers or rivers concerned are in Asia and Africa.
In Asia, these are the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Hai He, the Pearl River, the Mekong, the Love, the Ganges and the Indus. The other two rivers, the Nile and the Niger, are found in Africa.
After an overview of the attempts to respond to this problem, Wings of the Ocean is working on the establishment of a comprehensive and effective action plan in terms of the recovery of macro plastic waste dumped by these rivers in the oceans.
Our idea is to install floating dams in rivers, non-intrusive for animals and river traffic. This would be done through a “reel” barge and a “collector” funnel barge.
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