14 DAY TRIAL // This past summer, members of NGO Healthy Seas kept themselves busy collecting about 20 tons of fishing nets that ended up at the bottom of the North Sea over the years.
The fishing nets were recovered from areas close to Belgium's and Holland's coastline, and will soon be turned into clothes and carpets.
Specifically, they will be sent to a plant in Slovenia, where they will be converted into ECONYL yarns, i.e. a textile material that can be used to make carpets and various clothing items, Business Green tells us.
According to recent reports issued by the UN, out planet's seas and oceans are presently home to some 640,000 tons of fishing nets.
Needless to say, their presence in these aquatic environments threatens numerous animal species, especially the ones that are big enough to get caught up in them and then die a fairly slow and painful death.
The good news is that, in the future, NGO Healthy Seas plans to also collect fishing nets that are lying at the bottom of the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. Hopefully, these projects will prove as successful as the one in the North Sea was.