How we poision our seas

Every year, or every two seasons at most, we renew the antifouling of our live work with great pain for our pocket. But few keep in mind that in this way we dissolve potent poisons that inexorably kill our marine environment.

Under the waterline all ships are quickly colonized by numerous organisms that the Anglo-Saxons call "fouling". First, the marine bacteria nest on the surface of the hull, creating a transparent layer that already shows viscous and indicates that the “ground” is ready to be colonized by the next layer of organisms.

It is the turn for many tiny diatomic algae that are supported by the bacterial layer and cover the hull with the characteristic verdin. The area is ready to install protozoan populations that in turn serve as food for other crustacean micro layers that are fixed to the previous ones.

In the end we have a whole “ecosystem” of up to 4,000 different life forms fixed on our helmets, such as the characteristic mussels, snails and other mollusks.

Hydrodynamic resistance

Las diversas formas de vida y en especial las protuberancias de las conchas de los moluscos, generan un importante rozamiento que llega a reducir hasta un 30% la velocidad del barco a igualdad de consumo.

The various forms of life and especially the protuberances of the shells of the mollusks, generate an important friction that reduces up to 30% the speed of the ship to equal consumption.

This is why poisonous paintings were designed with the ability to poison and kill life forms that could be fixed on the painted surface. This paint is formulated with highly toxic compounds for all life forms, marine or non-marine ... Thus it was achieved that the helmets remained clean at least for some time, since the paint is gradually dissolving under pain of not being able to act, and that phenomenon of dissolution is what kills our seas.

Cumulative effect

The poison is not destroyed. Just go to sea water. Gradually and ship by ship, season after season, the level of marine pollution does not stop rising. Then fish that are eaten by other larger fish that in turn accumulate more toxins in their tissues are intoxicated. Fish that are then fish and without a doubt poison ourselves.

This is the irony of the story. We poison ourselves with our own poisons. And although the effect is not immediate, malignant tumors increase and cancer soars as well as other diseases that doctors cannot explain.

Increase marine traffic

There are more and more merchant ships, more tankers, more goods transported by sea. The pollution effect is very important with thousands of ships of great length navigating continuously, each of which can get to "consume" about 65 tons of toxic paints in each maintenance.

And our pleasure boats are not trivial either. In Europe antifoulings are applied to several million ships. In France alone there is a fleet in the 270 recreational ports, with close to one million pleasure boats. And in many cases at all, because a large number of ships moored in the ports do not get to sail even one day a year. The average is in 5 or 6 days of navigation per year for each ship!

But the yachts sail or do not sail, they dissolve their lethal antifouling. Some "unconscious" even get rid of their old batteries overboard, throwing them into the sea and creating an authentic sewer of highly poisonous metals such as cadmium or the same lead in the same nautical port.

Necessary changes

It is only a matter of time that we must make decisions to preserve our seas. The terrible thing is that they may be adopted when all our marine fauna is already affected. Real solutions will only be sought when people clearly perceive the enormous problem and danger to health. It is necessary to face the problem with rigor and much effort. The matter is very serious and we are healthy in it.

The solution is in human ingenuity