Trash Island in the Pacific: causes of the appearance, consequences, photo

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 disgrace of our planet, already exceeds the territory of France. The fact is that mankind produces garbage, which grows every day and covers new territories not only on the earth. Extremely affected residents of aquatic ecosystems, which in recent decades have felt all the delights of civilization.

Unfortunately, most people do not know about the real environmental situation and the dirty heritage of mankind. The problem of marine debris causing irreparable damage to the environment is not publicized, and after all, according to approximate calculations, the weight of plastics that emits toxic substances is more than one hundred million tons.

How does the garbage get into the ocean?

Where does the trash come from in the ocean, if a person does not live there? More than 80% of the waste comes from land-based sources, and the bulk of them are plastic bottles from under the water, bags, cups. In addition, fishing nets and containers that are lost from ships are at sea. The main polluters are two countries - China and India, where residents dump garbage directly into the water.

Two sides of plastic

We can say that from the moment the plastic was invented, the total pollution of the green planet began. The material, which greatly facilitated people's lives, turned into a real poison for the earth and the ocean when it gets there after use. Decaying for more than a hundred years, cheap plastic, from which it is so easy to get rid of, causes serious damage to nature.

This problem has been reaffirmed for more than fifty years, but environmentalists only sounded alarm at the beginning of 2000, as a new continent consisting of waste material appeared on the planet. Underwater currents brought down plastic litter into garbage islands in the ocean, which turned out to be a kind of trap and can not go beyond it. It is impossible to say exactly how much unnecessary trash the planet stores.

Garbage island of death

The greatest dump, which is located in the Pacific basin, goes deep by 30 meters and stretches from California to the Hawaiian Islands for hundreds of kilometers. For decades, plastic floated in the water, until it formed a huge island, growing at a catastrophic pace. According to the researchers, its mass now exceeds the mass of zooplankton by almost seven times.

The Pacific garbage island, consisting of plastic that crumbles into small pieces under the influence of salt and sun, is held in one place thanks to the underwater currents. Here is located a subtropical whirlpool, which is called the "desert of the World Ocean". Here from different parts of the world for many years various rubbish has been demolished, and because of the abundance of rotting corpses of animals and wet wood, water is saturated with hydrogen sulfide. This is a real dead zone, extremely poor in life. In a fetid place, where the fresh wind never blows, do not go shopping and military ships, trying to circumvent it.

But after the 50-ies of the last century the situation deteriorated sharply, and plastic bags, bags and bottles that did not undergo biological decay were added to the remains with algae. Now the garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, the area of which is growing several times every ten years, is 90% polyethylene.

Danger to birds and marine life

Living in the water mammals take forage waste that sticks in the stomach, and soon die. They get entangled in the garbage, getting deadly damage. Birds feed their chicks with small sharp granules resembling eggs, which leads to their death. Ocean garbage is also a danger to humans, because many marine creatures that enter it are poisoned by plastic.

Garbage floating on the surface of the ocean blocks the sun's rays, which threatens the normal life of plankton and algae that support the ecosystem, producing nutrients. Their disappearance will lead to the death of many species of marine life. The garbage island, consisting of plastic, which does not decompose in water, carries a danger to all living beings.

Giant garbage dump

Recent studies conducted by scientists have shown that the main part of the debris is the smallest plastic particles of about five millimeters in size, which are distributed both on the surface and in the middle layers of 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 an airplane. First, about 70% of the trash falls to the bottom, and secondly, the transparent plastic particles lie beneath the surface of the water, and to see them from the height is simply unrealistic. A giant polyethylene spot can be seen only from a ship that came close to it, or scuba diving. Some scientists claim that its area is about 15 million kilometers.

The changing balance of the ecosystem

When studying pieces of plastic found in water, it was found that they are densely populated with microbes: on one millimeter, about a thousand bacteria, both innocuous and capable of causing disease, were detected. It turned out that garbage changes the ocean, and one can not foresee the consequences of this, but people depend heavily on the existing ecosystem.

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

Discoverer of the island from floating trash

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

From the reports of the yachtsman, where he warned about the threat looming over mankind, at first simply dismissed. And only after a violent storm that threw tons of plastic debris on the beaches of the Hawaiian Islands, which caused the death of thousands of animals and birds, the surname of Moore became known to the whole world.

Warnings

After studies, during which carcinogenic substances used in the production of reusable bottles were found in seawater, the American warned that the continued use of polyethylene would threaten the entire planet. "The plastic that absorbs chemicals is incredibly toxic," said the discoverer of the island, consisting of floating trash, "The sea dwellers absorb poison, and the ocean has turned into plastic soup."

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

"An animal that fell off a leash"

A garbage island, on the surface of which one can not walk, consists of the tiniest particles forming a cloudy soup. Environmentalists compared him to a large animal, which was lowered from the leash. As soon as the garbage reaches the 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, which destroys the natural ecosystem, the photo of which went around all the world's publications devoted to ecology, gradually turns into a real atoll with a solid surface. And this is very frightening to modern scientists who believe that soon the littered areas will become whole continents.

Landfill on land

More recently, the public was shocked by the fact that in the Maldives, where the tourism industry is extremely developed, too much rubbish is formed. Luxury hotels do not sort it for further processing, as required by the rules, but are loaded into a single heap. Some boaters who do not want to wait for a turn to dumping waste simply throw them into the water, and what remains remains on the artificially created Tilafushi garbage island, which turned into a city dump.

This corner, which does not resemble paradise, is located not far from the capital of the Maldives. Over a place different from the usual resorts, where residents are trying to find things that are suitable for sale, a cloud of black smog from the fires with rubbish hung. The landfill extends towards the sea, and a serious pollution of water has already begun, and the government has not solved the problem of garbage disposal. There are tourists coming to Tilafushi specifically to look at the man-made disaster near.

Scary facts

In 2012, experts from the Scripps Institute for Oceanography investigated the contaminated sites off the coast of California and found that in just forty years the amount of garbage increased by a hundred times. And this state of affairs is very worrisome for researchers, because there is a high probability that there will come a time 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 has confidently stated that it is capable of ruining even the richest state. A garbage island in the Pacific Ocean, whose photo arouses fear for the future of the planet, is in neutral waters, and it turns out that the floating rubbish is a draw. In addition, it is not only very costly, but also practically impossible, because small plastic particles have the same size as plankton, and those networks that could separate garbage from small marine inhabitants have not yet been developed. And what to do with waste, which for many years have settled at the bottom, no one knows.

Scientists warn that it is possible to prevent waste from entering the water if people are not able to clear the garbage islands in the ocean. Photos of huge landfills force every inhabitant of the Earth to think about the conditions under which his children and grandchildren will exist. You should minimize the consumption of plastic, take it for processing, clean up after yourself, and only then people will be able to preserve Mother Nature and those unique monuments that she gave us.