Lecture : une petite mer, un grand problème

microplastics — מיקרופלסטיק, חתיכות פלסטיק קטנות מאוד. current (ברבים currents) — זרם במים. strait — מצר, מעבר צר של ים בין שתי יבשות. turtle — צב. jellyfish — מדוזה. seabird — עוף ים. millimetre — מילימטר. clean-up — מבצע ניקיון. straw (ברבים straws) — קש לשתייה. the Mediterranean — הים התיכון, the Atlantic Ocean — האוקיינוס האטלנטי, the Strait of Gibraltar — מצר גיברלטר, Arctic — של הקוטב הצפוני, European — אירופי. WWF הוא ארגון בינלאומי להגנת הטבע, ו־Michmoret הוא מכמורת, ליד נתניה.

On a summer morning, the beach in Ashdod looks perfect: golden sand, blue water and children building castles. But if you look closely at the line where the waves end, you will often find bottle caps, pieces of bags and tiny coloured bits of plastic. Some of this rubbish was left by people on the beach. Some was washed into the sea from the cities by the winter rain, and some has been carried by the currents from other countries.

Plastic is a wonderful material: it is light, cheap and strong. Those are exactly the qualities that make it a problem in the ocean. Most plastic is not broken down by nature the way wood or paper is. Instead, it is broken by the sun and the waves into smaller and smaller pieces. Pieces smaller than five millimetres are called microplastics, and they have been found almost everywhere scientists have looked: in deep water, in Arctic ice, in fish and even in the salt on our tables.

The Mediterranean suffers more than most seas. It is almost closed: its only natural connection to the Atlantic Ocean is the Strait of Gibraltar, which is about fourteen kilometres wide at its narrowest point. Water moves in and out very slowly, so plastic that enters this sea tends to stay there. More than a hundred million people live along its coasts, and millions of tourists visit them every summer. According to a 2019 report by WWF, the Mediterranean holds less than one percent of the world's ocean water but about seven percent of its microplastics.

Sea animals pay the price. Sea turtles, which lay their eggs on Israeli beaches every summer, may mistake floating plastic bags for jellyfish, one of their favourite foods. Injured turtles are treated at the Sea Turtle Rescue Center in Michmoret, and many of them are later returned to the sea. Fish and seabirds swallow smaller pieces, and some of that plastic may end up on our plates.

Can anything be done? The good news is that some solutions are already working. In 2017, a law was introduced in Israel that requires large supermarkets to charge for single-use plastic bags, and the number of bags that were given out fell sharply. Since 2021, many single-use plastic products, such as straws and plates, have been banned in the European Union. In Israel, thousands of volunteers take part in beach clean-ups every year.

Still, clean-ups alone cannot solve the problem; it is like drying the floor while the tap is still running. Experts agree that the most important step is to use less plastic in the first place. The ocean, which covers more than seventy percent of our planet, will not be saved by one law or one beach day. It will be saved, if it is saved, by millions of small choices.