Let's travel together #328 - The Never-Ending Fight Against Pollution at Haus des Meeres (Vienna, Austria)

I kept postponing this post as much as I could, even if it's amongst the first things I and my friends saw during our trip to Vienna, which took place 2 years ago already.

That doesn't usually happen, and I am quite excited to write about every single spot I discover on this planet, but I'd lie saying that I walk away every time with a smile on my face.

Whether we are speaking of temporary exhibitions that remind us how much we are harming the planet with our pollution and not-so-nice actions, or I get to see something related to the past of a country and what it's been through, it's hard to compare that kind of emotion with something else.

There is no need to say that in most cases I learn something new and get my motivation to change something out there, but equally, it brings frustration, anger, sadness and moments of feeling useless just because, honestly speaking, the way the world is going, doesn't seem like coming with a happy ending.

So, during our visit to Haus des Meeres, yet a place that I have to write a proper article of, there was this sort of temporary exhibition held on one of the last floors from the top.
Now looking back, I really hope it wasn't a temporary exhibition but something that will be there forever just for the sake of the thousands of tourists that are visiting this place and might as well bring a little change to their day-by-day routine when it comes to how to recycle and avoid pollution of any kind.
We had no clue what we were about to see just because we only read about a large aquarium with lots of unique and interesting species insine, for already a few decades.
But as most of us enjoy surprises, we welcomed these without asking questions but ready to learn something new.
I mentioned "these" because there is another sort of exhibition we discovered in the same building but which has nothing to do with today's topic so I'll keep that for a future post.

Anyway, while the Antique diving suit was really impressive, we couldn't really connect it with the exhibition about pollution just because we were in a building known as mainly being a large aquarium and it sort of made sense to be there.

However, along with its many purposes both in the past and in the 21st century, the diving suit also played the role of cleaning the waters from people's pollution, because yes, this always existed, but obviously not in the tragic quantities we have these days.

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Right after the diving suit, there was a large boat layout and lots of sand. However, not the sand or the boat were the point of interest but the trail behind of them which was showing numbers of how tragically the pollution increased over the years, especially when it comes to water.

The numbers showed over 200 million tones of plastic found in the waters of the globe in 2020 but honestly, I'm really scared of what the numbers are saying for 2024...

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If you feel like numbers are not enough, soon you will walk into a hidden room with improvised doors made of plastic bottles and lots of things found in the water placed on the ceiling. There was no smell, and was nothing gross, but the pressure I felt on my shoulders instantly made me let some tears roll down my cheeks thinking of how nocive people are for this world and that nothing bad from what is currently going on out there, from wars to natural disasters and so on, is not like we don't deserve that. This planet was already too kind with us and asked for nothing in return but somehow we slowly, but surely, did a 'great job' of ruining it.

I know this is not the common travel post I usually write, but before it comes to an end I'd like to let some numbers down below in terms of what was found in the waters in the last 2-3 years:

1. Cigarette butts: over 1,860,615 collected during the International Coastal Ocean Cleanup from 2022;
2. Beverage bottles: over 1,175,045 collected during the same event. The estimations show that in 2050 we will have more plastic bottles in the water than fish;
3. Food wrappers and containers: 998,661 pieces collected;
4. Bottle caps: more than 844,375 pieces found in 2022;
5. Plastic bags: more than one million;
6. Cups, plates and cutlery: nearly to 700,000 pieces;
7. Plastic Straws and stirrers: around 406,557;
8. Glass beverage bottles: 521,730 picked up in a single ocean;
9. Beverage cans: 339,875 found in 2018;
10. Paper bags: no numbers available but studies show that paper bag productions are responsible for 50 times more water pollution compared to plastic due to the high usage of toxic chemicals in the process.

Source: https://www.fairplanet.org/

In conclusion, if we still want to have a place to visit in a few years now, praying to have natural disasters finally come to an end is not enough, but we should do the bare minimum to start recycling and keep educating both ourselves and our loves ones regarding what we can cause with a single cigarette but or plastic bag thrown in the waters.

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The exhibition can be seen at Haus des Meeres located at the address Haus des Meeres, Fritz-Grünbaum-Platz 1, 1060 Wien which is open daily from 9 AM to 8 PM. In order to reach it, you can use either Subway U3 (Neubaugasse station) or one of the busses 13A, 14A, 57A until Haus des Meeres station.

Other places I've seen during my stay in Vienna:

• The Austrian Parliament Building
• Capuchin Church (Katholische Kapuzinerkirche "Hl. Maria von den Engeln")
• The tour of the Christmas Markets from Vienna, Austria
• Stadtpark
• Shop Windows of Vienna, Austria
• Hundertwasser House (Hundertwasserhaus)
• The Imperial Crypt
• Column of Pest (The Plague Column, Vienna, Austria)
• St. Charles's Church (Karlskirche)
• Schonbrunn Palace
• The Donauturm (Danube Tower)
• Café Gloriette, Schloss Schoenbrunn (Wien, Austria)
• Wurstelprater Vergnügungspark Amusement Park
• Schönbrunn Zoo (The World´s Oldest Zoo)
• St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom Cathedral)
• The Never-Ending Fight Against Pollution at Haus des Meeres (Vienna, Austria)

more coming soon...

^{Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (300+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 750+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.}

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[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 48.19782 lat 16.35285 long A great place to learn something new everyday and also take advantage of the temporary exhibitions d3scr))