Garbage island in the Pacific Ocean: causes, consequences, photos

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

In the Pacific Ocean there is an unusual island that is not marked on any map of the world. Meanwhile, the area of this place, which has become a real shame of our planet, already exceeds the territory of France. The fact is that humanity produces garbage, which is increasing every day and covering new territories not only on earth. The inhabitants of aquatic ecosystems, which have experienced all the delights of civilization in recent decades, are suffering extremely.

Unfortunately, most people do not know about the real environmental situation and the dirty heritage of mankind. The problem of marine litter, which causes irreparable damage to the environment, is not made public, and, according to rough estimates, the weight of plastic that releases toxic substances is more than one hundred million tons.

How does trash get into the ocean?

Where does the garbage in the ocean come from if a person does not live there? More than 80% of waste comes from land sources, and most of them are plastic water bottles, bags, cups. In addition, fishing nets and containers lost from ships end up in the sea. Two countries are considered the main polluters - China and India, where residentsdump garbage directly into the water.

Two sides of plastic

It can be said that from the moment plastic was invented, the total pollution of the green planet began. A material that has made life so much easier for people has become a real poison to the land and ocean when it gets there after use. Decomposing for over a hundred years, cheap plastic, which is so easy to get rid of, causes serious damage to nature.

This problem has been talked about for more than fifty years, but environmentalists only sounded the alarm in early 2000, as a new continent appeared on the planet, consisting of waste. Undercurrents have knocked down plastic rubbish into garbage islands in the ocean, which are trapped in a kind of trap and cannot go beyond it. It is impossible to say exactly how much junk the planet stores.

Death Garbage Island

The largest landfill in the Pacific Basin goes 30 meters deep and stretches from California to Hawaii for hundreds of kilometers. For decades, plastic floated in water until it formed a huge island, growing at a catastrophic pace. According to researchers, its mass now exceeds the mass of zooplankton by almost seven times.

Pacific garbage island, made of plastic that crumbles into small pieces under the influence of s alt and the sun, is held in place by undercurrents. Here is a subtropical whirlpool,which is called the "desert of the oceans". Various rubbish has been brought here from different parts of the world for many years, and due to the abundance of rotting animal corpses, wet wood, the water is saturated with hydrogen sulfide. This is a real dead zone, extremely poor in life. A foul-smelling place where no fresh wind ever blows, merchant ships and warships do not enter, trying to bypass it.

But after the 50s of the last century, the situation deteriorated sharply, and plastic packaging, bags and bottles that did not undergo biological decay processes were added to the remains with algae. Now a garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, the area of \u200b\u200bwhich increases several times every ten years, is 90% polyethylene.

Danger to birds and marine life

Water-dwelling mammals take waste that gets stuck in their stomachs as food and soon die. They become entangled in the debris, taking fatal injuries. Birds feed their chicks with small, sharp granules resembling eggs, which leads to their death. Ocean debris is also dangerous for humans, because many marine life that get inside it are poisoned by plastic.

Debris floating on the surface of the ocean blocks the sun's rays, threatening plankton and algae that support the ecosystem by producing nutrients. Their disappearance will lead to the death of many species of marine life. Garbage island, consisting of plastic that does not decompose in water, is fraught withdanger to all living beings.

Giant garbage dump

Recent studies by scientists have shown that the main part of the garbage is the smallest plastic particles about five millimeters in size, which are distributed both on the surface and in the middle layers of the water. Because of this, it is not possible to find out the true extent of pollution, since it is impossible to see a garbage island in the Pacific Ocean from a satellite or aircraft. Firstly, about 70% of the rubbish sinks to the bottom, and secondly, transparent plastic particles lie under the surface of the water, and it is simply unrealistic to see them from a height. A giant polyethylene stain can only be seen from a ship that came close to it, or by scuba diving. Some scientists claim that its area is approximately 15 million kilometers.

Changing ecosystem balance

When studying pieces of plastic found in water, it was found that they are densely populated with microbes: about a thousand bacteria were found per millimeter, both harmless and capable of causing disease. It turned out that garbage is changing the ocean, and it is impossible to predict what consequences this will lead to, and people are highly dependent on the existing ecosystem.

The Pacific spot is not the only garbage heap on the planet, there are five large and several small landfills in the waters of Antarctica and Alaska in the world. No expert will be able to say exactly what the degree of contamination is.

Discoverer of floating junk island

Of course, the existence of such a phenomenon as a garbage island was long predicted by famous oceanographers, but only 20 years ago, returning from a regatta, Captain C. Moore discovered millions of plastic particles around his yacht. He did not even realize that he swam into the garbage heap, which had no end. Charles, interested in the problem, founded an environmental organization dedicated to the study of the Pacific Ocean.

From the reports of the yachtsman, where he warned of the threat looming over humanity, at first they simply brushed aside. And only after a strong storm, which threw tons of plastic garbage onto the beaches of the Hawaiian Islands, which caused the death of thousands of animals and birds, the name Mura became known to the whole world.

Cautions

After studies that found carcinogenic substances used in the production of reusable bottles in sea water, the American warned that the continued use of polyethylene would threaten the entire planet. "Plastic that absorbs chemicals is incredibly toxic," said the discoverer of an island made up of floating trash. "Sea life absorb the poison, and the ocean has turned into plastic soup."

First, garbage particles end up in the stomachs of underwater inhabitants, and then migrate to people's plates. So polyethylene becomes a link in the food chain, which is fraught with deadly diseases for people, because scientists have long proven the presence of plastic in the human body.

An off-leash pet

Garbage island, on the surfacewhich can not be walked, consists of tiny particles that form a cloudy soup. Ecologists compared it to a large animal that is off a leash. As soon as the dump reaches land, chaos begins. There are cases when the beaches were covered with plastic "confetti", which not only spoiled the rest of tourists, but also led to the death of sea turtles.

However, the garbage island destroying the natural ecosystem, the photo of which was bypassed by all the world publications devoted to ecology, is gradually turning into a real atoll with a solid surface. And this is very frightening for modern scientists who believe that littered areas will soon become entire continents.

Dump on land

Most recently, the public was shocked by the fact that in the Maldives, where the tourism industry is extremely developed, too much trash is being generated. Luxury hotels do not sort it for further processing, as required by the rules, but unload it into a single pile. Some boaters, who don't want to wait in line to dump waste, simply throw it into the water, and what remains ends up on the artificial garbage island Thilafushi, which has turned into a city dump.

This corner, not reminiscent of paradise, is located near the capital of the Maldives. A cloud of black smog hung over a place different from the usual resorts, where residents are trying to find things suitable for sale, a cloud of black smog from bonfires with rubbish. The landfill is expanding towards the sea, and severe water pollution has already begun, andThe government has not solved the problem of waste disposal. There are tourists who come to Thilafushi specifically to look at the man-made disaster up close.

Scary facts

In 2012, experts from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography examined polluted areas off the coast of California and found that in just forty years, the amount of garbage has increased a hundred times. And this state of affairs is very worrying for researchers, because there is a high probability that there will come a point when it will be impossible to fix anything.

Unresolved issue

No country in the world is ready to clean up contaminated sites, and Charles Moore confidently stated that this could ruin even the richest state. The garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, the photos of which cause fear for the future of the planet, is located in neutral waters, and it turns out that the floating trash is nobody's. In addition, this is not only very costly, but also practically impossible, since small plastic particles are the same size as plankton, and nets have not yet been developed that could separate debris from small marine inhabitants. And no one knows what to do with the waste that has settled at the bottom for many years.

Scientists warn that it is possible to prevent waste from entering the water if people are not able to clean up garbage islands in the ocean. Photos of giant landfills make every inhabitant of the Earth think about the conditions in which his children and grandchildren will exist. Consumption should be minimizedplastic, recycle it, clean up after themselves, and only then will people be able to preserve mother nature and the unique monuments that she gave us.