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October 16, 2020

Excuses, excuses…

BY: Jorge Blanco

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*** Local Caption *** Jorge Blanco and José Manuel Sáez tying knots. ROV umbilical in the foreground. Seafloor Plastics Survey Expedition. Valencia, España. October 2020. Jorge Blanco y José Manuel Sáez haciendo nudos. Umbilical del ROV en primer plano. Expedición Explorando los plásticos del fondo marino. La Pobla de Farnals, València, España. Octubre 2020.

 

A few months ago, I was asked the usual set of questions about Oceana’s expeditions for an interview: What is the most beautiful thing you have seen? The most shocking? What is the worst thing? Unfortunately, the answer to these last two questions was the same… Real, underwater dumps, meters and meters of ROV “flights” where plastic had clearly won the battle for the terrain… I remember clearly looking up “the eyes” of the ROV (the tilt) and see, or rather, not see an end to an underwater landfill…

In this campaign, we are trying to document the impact generated by plastics in habitats that were once truly jewels of our planet, and unfortunately, after several days, and several years of expeditions, we are no longer surprised to find litter, remnants of sandwich wrapping someone most probably had as a snack on the beach (because “the city council does not put enough buckets nearby), plastic cutlery (because “we are not going to take the good cutlery to go out to the beach” ), dishes from that birthday party at home (because “there are many guests to wash up after”).

The memories of those great moments should be photos on our hard drive, not as plastic littering our planet…