New danger to underwater life!The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a detrimental toll on the Earth’

New danger to underwater life!The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a detrimental toll on the Earth’s oceans: researchers say around 30% more waste has made its way into the seas in the last year, primarily non-recyclable materials like face masks and plastic take-out containers. In Şebnem Coşkun’s underwater photograph taken in the Bosporus Strait, the ethereal, translucent bodies of jellyfish drift vertiginously in a whirlpool of plastic and debris; a diver reaches for a face mask floating ominously in the center.Coşkun, a Turkish artist and photojournalist, is the third place winner of this year’s Nature Conservancy Photo Contest in the “People and Nature” category. The figure in her stunning image is free diver Şahika Ercümen, Turkey’s multiple world record holder and United Nations environmental advocate, captured collecting trash near the Ortaköy coastline on June 27, 2020.About half a million tons of plastic are dumped into the Mediterranean every year — the equivalent of 33,800 plastic bottles entering the sea each minute, Coşkun notes in a statement about the photograph.“Ever since I started scuba diving in 2014, the things that have impressed me the most underwater have been floating plastic and waste. I thought there was a world underwater that would fascinate me, but this sight shocked me,” she informed Hyperallergic. “Then I started working on marine litter. I was working as a photojournalist at Anadolu Agency and I started taking pictures to show the other side of this world.”“After I started to see the waste, I stopped buying the water sold in plastic bottles. If my encounter with waste has changed me so much, I think it can change everyone,” Coşkun added.The use of face coverings and different private protecting tools (PPE) has confirmed important to assist curb the unfold of coronavirus, however these things have to be rigorously discarded to keep away from harming marine wildlife and ecosystems. Encouraging reusable masks and implementing insurance policies to cease littering may help, in line with the conservation group OceansAsia. Nature Conservancy Photo Contest in the “People and Nature” © Sebnem Coskun/TNC Photo Contest 2021 -- source link

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