In the past, the Lottoland Foundation has campaigned, among other things, for the elimination and prevention of plastic waste in the world’s oceans. But our domestic North and Baltic Seas were also affected and needed our support.
According to NABU, there were more than 600,000 cubic metres of rubbish at the bottom of the North Sea alone. On Baltic Sea beaches, there were on average 70 pieces of rubbish of various sizes per 100 metres of coastline, and on the tidelands of the Wadden Sea there were even almost 390 per 100 metres. Most of this rubbish consisted of plastic. And this had consequences for all of us: seabirds ate plastic and built their nests out of it, rare harbour porpoises or grey seals got caught in old fishing nets and drowned, a flood of microplastic washed through animal and human food.
As early as 2010, NABU launched the “Oceans without Plastic” project. Shortly after the Lottoland Foundation supported this important domestic project. As part of the project, we were actively campaigning with NABU for better waste disposal in ports and developed measures with coastal communities to avoid waste and conserve resources. We also organised and supported clean-up campaigns on beaches and riverbanks on the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts with hundreds of helpers.
We were fighting to ensure that our seas do not become a dumping ground.
