Invitation & Announcement: November 15, 2021 - Ice cream with plastic, lecture

In a lecture, speaker Simone Flörke reports on excursions to Svalbard using her own pictures in order to draw attention to a global problem.

On her expeditions, the speaker made it her business to collect plastic waste on various local beaches and thus work towards a cleaner environment. 

It was decisive for Simone Flörke when, on some expeditions, she found plastic rubbish in the deepest ice, which had a direct influence on the local fauna: laced limbs and animals that died in agony.

After research, Flörke found that the problem of plastic waste in the world's oceans cannot only be limited to visible accumulations of rubbish floating in the sea or washed up on the beach:
After the discovery of microplastics in the northern polar region, it became clear that the global problem with plastic waste in the world's oceans has also reached the Arctic, with a direct impact on the corresponding ecosystems in the north and south. 

In a discussion round these problems should be discussed in a global context.
Germany is an export country for garbage.

A country like Rwanda, which has dispensed with plastic bags for ten years, has now become a role model. There are a lot of problems and need for further action, so that other countries are joining the fight against plastic waste.

The pollution with microplastics in food is steadily increasing, as food fish are often imported from the southern hemisphere, where our garbage is innocently given into the sea due to a lack of control systems. There is a need for action and cooperation so that countries with a high proportion of fisheries do not deprive themselves of their livelihoods.

The lecture actively refers to the Earth Charter and sheds light on global implications.

Introduction: Valeria Geritzen

An offer from the Warburg Earth Charter Ideas Workshop