Brazilian fisherman's unusual haul after fish disappear from ocean
Fishermen have turned to cleaning up rubbish from waterways for a living after pollution killed the fish in once plentiful Brazilian waters.
Old furniture, dolls, televisions and bottles are among the unusual items they are collecting instead of seafood.
Francinaldo Alves da Silva, 47, said the fuel required to travel further to find his catch is too expensive to make the trip worthwhile.
“Before it was wonderful. In your front door, you could catch plenty of shrimp and fish,” he said.
“Today, to catch fish you need to travel far.”
He’s part of an initiative by Ogyre, an Italian ocean cleaning enterprise, and Brazil’s BVRio Institute which pays the men above the minimum wage.
They hope more than 100 tonnes of garbage will be collected from waters across Rio de Janeiro state as the project runs for the next 12 months.
Twenty-five fishermen have been employed to take part in the program, working two days a week, in a bid to make the the waters cleaner.
Tonnes of trash collected from Greece's ocean floor
It's one of many ongoing initiatives occurring on Wednesday, which is World Oceans Day.
In Greece, more than 23 tonnes of garbage has been retrieved from the sea floor around the Ionian island of Ithaca.
Volunteers from the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Lebanon, Hungary and Greece collected the garbage over a two week period.
The haul included abandoned nets, known as “ghost nets”, which kill countless marine mammals and fish.
Much of the garbage originated from a nearby fish farm, according to environment non-profit organisation Healthy Seas.
Closer to home, municipal workers in Indonesia have turned to scooping up trash from Muara Angke port in Jakarta.
Most of their haul from the heavily polluted waters was said to be plastics.
It's believed 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic now choke the world's oceans.
with Reuters
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