Marine pollution

Earth Day turns 50 this Wednesday, April 22.

When Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisc.) founded Earth Day in 1970, his hope was to make the environment a political issue in an era where US rivers caught on fire and thick smog choked cities.

Most marine litter was collected in the Black Sea province of Samsun in 2019, according to data from the Environment and Urban Planning Ministry.

Efforts focusing on collecting, parsing and storing waste stepped up after as much as 58,000 cubic meters of sea litter was retrieved in the city.

A total of 141 rulings regarding cases of sea pollution were issued in 2019 by the directorate of marine environment protection of the Hellenic Coast Guard, which imposed fines amounting to 390,713.16 euros.

Turkey's coastal city of Antalya will host COP22, an international convention on the protection of the Mediterranean marine environment and coastline in 2021, the country's minister of environment said on Dec. 18.

The Dutch non-governmental organization Ocean Cleanup, which fights pollution of the oceans with plastic, has unveiled its latest invention - a barge that collects waste, the Associated Press and France Press reported.

Scientists say a study of whales and dolphins that have washed up dead in Greece over a 20-year period has found alarmingly high levels of plastic trash in the animals' stomachs, which can condemn them to a slow and painful death.

The European Parliament has voted to ban a range of single-use plastics such as straws, cotton buds and cutlery and to ensure most bottles are recycled in a bid to curb ocean pollution.

As the Posidonia international shipping exhibition entered its second day on Tuesday, and on the occasion of World Environment Day, the Norwegian Embassy in Athens and a Greek conservation group organized a seminar on how to tackle marine pollution. 

Four months after an oil spill from a sunken tanker hit the Athens Riviera, Greece's Environment Ministry has adopted a package of measures designed to protect the marine environment across the country more effectively.

Deputy Shipping Minister Nektarios Santorinios said on Friday that the environmental health of the Saronic Gulf off Athens has improved since last year. 

Speaking to Parliament during a discussion about the ecological consequences of the oil spill after the Agia Zoni II tanker sank off Salamina in September, he said the "situation is better than it was a year earlier."