Volunteer divers pull 2,500 kilos of waste out of North Sea

Volunteers from foundation Duik de Noordzee Schoon dove 2,500 kilograms of waste out of the North Sea. The team spent nine days searching the seabed for items that are harmful to the ecosystem, focussing on ship wrecks between Ameland and Schiermonnikoog, the foundation said in a statement.

According to the foundations, ship wrecks are a source of marine life, but also hold on to a lot of waste. Fish get entangled in old fishing nets that got caught up on the wrecks, and plastic ends up in the food chain.

The divers removed clothing, kitchen utensils, travel suitcases, rugs, toys, car parts and hundreds of kilos of old fishing nets from the North Sea. Around 500 kilos of collected waste came from containers lost by the MSC Zoe early this year. Of the 342 containers that went overboard, almost 50 are still on the sea bed. The other 2 thousand kilos of waste collected consisted mainly of old fishing nets.

Duik de Noordzee Schoon was established in 2011 to remove lead and old fishing nets from shipwrecks. In total, volunteers from the foundation dove over 60 thousand kilograms of waste out of the North Sea in 14 expeditions.