In honor of World Oceans Day, CBS highlighted The Ocean Cleanup’s mission to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, cleaning an area the size of a football field every five seconds. Plastic in our oceans is an “ecological time bomb,” Matthias Egger of The Ocean Cleanup explained; the materials degrade and become microplastics that harm marine and human health.
“We are very concerned with the amount of plastics in the ocean and the health risks that are posed from the plastics breaking down and getting into our food chain and eventually getting into our bodies,” Helmsley Trustee Walter Panzirer told Paulina Smolinski. Microplastics have been found in lungs and arteries, with recent studies underlining the risks they pose to human health.
“It is so important for us to work collectively as an entire society to remove this because it has not only health problems for America, but has health problems for the entire globe,” Panzirer added.
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Banner image provided by The Ocean Cleanup.