Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/709569
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 31 JULY 2016 38 This Week Of all the hundreds of alga species that grow in the shallow waters around our shores, few can be more elegant than the Mermaid's cup. A delicate, pale-lime minuscule saucer suspended on a flimsy stalk, it is easy to overlook when growing singly. But a bunch of them covering a section of a shallow rock are sure to catch the eye: they look like a crockery factory after an earthquake! For all its diminutive size, however, the Mermaid's Cup (M: Aċetabularja) is in a way quite a giant. You see, when in science we speak of cells we usually think those minute specks that we are all made of and for which you need a microscope to see. Well, the Mermaid's Cup is visible enough to the naked eye, yet it is a single cell. Not so small now, is it! Many fish snack on the Mermaid's Cup but the main enemy of this green alga is not fish but pollution, which it cannot tolerate. With that in mind, here's hoping you see lots of it wherever you go swimming. GREEN IDEA OF THE WEEK 420: INVEST IN YOUR OWN COFFEE CUP: If you start every morning with a steamy cup, a quick tabulation can show you that the waste is piling up. Invest in a reusable cup, which not only cuts down on waste, but keeps your beverage hot for a much longer time. Most coffee shops will happily fill your own cup, and some might even offer you a discount in exchange! Visit Friends of the Earth's website for more information about our work, as well as for information about how to join us. You can also support us by sending us a donation - www.foemalta.org/donate Text Victor Falzon Photo Desirée Falzon 517. MERMAID'S CUP Friends of the Earth Malta is looking to fully sponsor 15 Maltese youths, aged 18-30 years to join up with 15 Belgian youths and participate in a 7-day and 7-night residential programme, ECOLOGICA, here in Malta. ECOLOGICA is an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange programme organised by Friends of the Earth Malta and BINCO, Belgium. The programme is designed to provide hands-on fieldwork experience to persons working and studying in the field of biology. However, the programme is open to anyone with a passion for biodiversity and willingness to learn field research techniques. Participants will carry out field surveys, practise different methodologies and collect data on different taxa groups. This is a youth project and participants will be able to shape how it will move forward. All the data collected will contribute to updating the national Red List. ECOLOGICA is the first step towards contributing for the setting up of a clear and scientifically robust biodiversity-monitoring network. More and more surveys will be carried out, which participants will take a leading role in establishing. The event will be between September 21 - 27. Board and accommodation costs will be covered. Application forms can be found at http://www.foemalta.org/ links/ecologica Hands-on biodiversity fieldwork – Join us! The plasticisation of the sea IT so happens that during these hot, sweltering days we go down for a quick dip into our clear, blue seas, inviting under the shimmer- ing sunlight in the relative quiet of the afternoon. We slowly immerse ourselves into the refreshing wa- ters, entering the ma- rine world while skimming the surface, enjoying the freshness of it all, oozing relaxation… … until we feel something clingy and papery sticking to our legs. Plastic! Ugh! All too often, we are greeted by waste on our shores, left by irresponsible sea-goers clearly not giving a hoot about others. Our seas are fast becoming full of plastics and others forms of waste. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, one refuse truck's-worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, and the situation is get- ting worse. These figures are astounding, and recently it has been estimated that there will be more plastic in the sea by weight than fish by 2050. In recent years, reports have been published on a so-called "great garbage patch" in the Pacific, where all currents eventually lead to, leading to a vast expanse of plastic waste the size of France floating far from human eyes. The stark statistics go on – despite the growing demand, just 5% of plastics are recycled effectively, while 40% end up in landfill and a third in fragile ecosystems such as the world's oceans. Much of the remainder is burned, generating energy, but causing more fossil fuels to be consumed in order to make new plastic bags, cups, tubs and consumer devices demanded by the economy. In Malta, 2012 EU data shows that Malta only recy- cles around 15% of its plastic – the rest is dumped in landfills or shipped abroad. In the past, we often thought of the sea as a great, vast ex- panse that would just dissolve any dumped waste into noth- ing. However, this is far from the truth. With 7.3 billion people on the planet, fast rising to nine billion in the coming decades, we treat the ocean as a garbage dump at our peril. Plastics in our seas have an im- pact far beyond mere nuisance. Sea fauna are being devastated by plastics – recent whale autop- sies have found whales starved, their stomachs full of plastic. In the remote Midway atoll in the Pacific, birds have been found dead with plastics – from ciga- rette lighters to nylon strings – in their stomachs. Turtles of- ten confuse clear plastic bags with jellyfish and ingest them, choking to death in the process. Hence the jellyfish swarms in- creasing in our oceans. Plastics DO dissolve in the sea, on timescales from days to cen- turies (depending on the plastic type) and turn into invisible mi- croplastics that are then ingested by fish that end up on our plate. Indeed, we treat the ocean as a dump at our own cost, especially since some plastics are known to have negative health impacts on humans, especially children. In the meantime, one might ask – what can I do in face of this crisis? As is often the case the things we need to do are quite simple really. Avoid buying products that are heavy on pack- aging, which is quite a nuisance at the end of the day. Go shop- ping with a bag at hand, without getting new plastic bags from the store. Additionally, throw rubbish in the bin, do not leave it lying about. Lastly, for the more environmentally conscious among us, when you see plastic lying about or floating in the sea, pick it up and throw it in the bin. It won't harm you, but it might well save lives in the long term, animals and humans alike! With 7.3 billion people on the planet, fast rising to nine billion, we treat the ocean as a garbage dump at our peril John Paul Cauchi