INTRODUCTION (anglais)

The Mediterranean sea is in danger . The presence of the Atlantic ocean (The Strait of Gibraltar) and the Red Sea is an aggravating factor.
Industrial pollution is to blame, so is people’s and cosumers’ indifference.
Sea-transportation,everyday waste, and greed as far as real-estate is concerned, are to be blamed too.
The question raised is:
We are well aware of the consequences of this pollution and of the existence of solutions, so why don’t we even try to put an end to it?

This sea irrigates 22 sea side countries which are made up of 400 million people, 142 million of whom live on coastal zones. Added to this figure are the 175 million annual tourists.
There are 3 kinds of threats:

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  Sea transportation which is very important and includes 220 000 boats and more than 100 tons (1/3 of world maritime trade) of dangerous cargos: about 370 million tons of petrol (20% of the global production) is shipped every year on the Mediterranean sea.
  

• 
  Tourism in the Mediterranean sea represents about 1/3 of the world tourism. It’s a large source of revenue for coastal cities but plays an important part in degrading the quality of the sea.
  

• 
  We’ll focus on the 3^rd kind of danger coming from urban pollution which represents 80% of the origin of pollution
  

More than half of urban Mediterranean agglomerations of more than 100 000 inhabitants don’t have a water treatment plant for their residential water supply, 60% of them pour their sewer water directly into the sea. Urbanisation as wall as growing tourism along the coasts of the Mediterranean bring about these environmental and sanitary problems.
Are people really aware of this type of pollution?
We will carry on a survey of two samples of Marseille inhabitants solutions do exist. They are many and expensive and many countries are involved and depend on public money. Among these, water treatment plants, is a solution we’ll study.