Water pollution

Turkey's Agriculture and Forestry Ministry has carried out ghost net cleanups in seas and lakes in the last four years, removing 389,000 square meters of abandoned fishing nets claiming the lives of many marine creatures.

On Thursday and Friday at Lavrio in Attica, 27 partners, including some leading European universities, will be presenting the HYDROUSA project, which is getting off the drawing board and into the field this month.

Croatian environmentalists are calling for a more pro-active approach to pollution in the Adriatic resulting from thrown-away plastic items, amid growing fears about their impact on fish, wildlife and human health.

There are ghosts in the ocean. Silent killers carried by the currents, wrapping themselves around reefs and claiming the lives of millions of marine creatures great and small, from sponges and tiny crustaceans to dolphins, sharks and whales.

The Mediterranean Sea is quickly turning into a dangerous "plastic trap" with record levels of pollution from micro- and macro-plastics threatening marine species and human health, according to a new report by conservation group WWF.

The European Court of Justice has fined Greece 5 million euros with an additional penalty of 3.28 million euros for every six months that it delays payment its failure to comply with waste water treatment regulations in the Thriasio Plain in western Attica.

Hundreds of locals were hospitalized on Dec. 25 after being affected by chemical waste that got mixed in the sewage system and caused pungent smells that alarmed locals and officials in Istanbul’s industrial Tuzla district on the city’s Anatolian side.

Scientists at the Milbrook Institute of Ecosystem Research have found that the waste of the pharmaceutical industry falling into the rivers makes the fish aggressive, LIFE reports.

Environmental pollution takes more lives than wars, natural disasters, hunger, smoking, world news agencies said, quoted by bTV. More than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria put together.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has announced that lifeguards in its fire brigade department have saved 4,800 people in the province over the course of this summer, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Sept. 20.