Pacific’s big garbage stains becomes an ecosystem

Pacific is a large area of ​​waste accumulation between Hawaii and California in the North Pacific Ocean. It is formed by plastics and other ruins that are essentially dragged by ocean currents and focusing on that area.

In a recent interview Popular scienceBruno Sainte-Rose, the calculation leader of Ocean Cleaning, describes a ship trip from Canada Porto de Victoria until it is called “microplastic soup”. Sainte-Rose says, “You see an increase in the debris landscapes,” says three and a half days after navigation.

According to the aviation and space engineer, the term “microplastic soup” is the most appropriate, because GPGP is not only a “island” that floats in the ocean, but also a compact massIt is clearly seen by satellites or ships. As 86% of the plastics come from fishing activity, soup is thrown or lost by fish nets according to ocean cleaning.

Why doesn’t the big garbagespot stop growth?

In 1973, when some travelers noticed an abnormal amount of artificial objects in the North Pacific. Although floating plastics are common in the oceans (According to 2023 research, there are 171 trillion pieces)The surprise was to find them far from the shore. “The International Space Station is often closer to GPGP than people,” Sainte Rose said. Says.

The dough of flooded plastics focuses on a remote area wrapped in the northern Pacific turnover, it is a large ocean flow that rotates clockwise and captures the debris and gradually moves in the ocean. The slow vortices of this turn accumulate waste. Today it is divided into two: West, near Japan and between the East, between California and Hawaii. Plastic circulates between these regions, but does not escape the currents.

Ocean Cleanup is a non -profit Dutch organization that has the task of developing technologies to remove plastic from the oceans and prevent it from reaching it. Only in 2024, 11.5 million pounds was removed from the oceans and the world rivers. The Foundation estimates that it is possible to eliminate the GPGP in ten years with an investment of 7.5 billion dollars.

Plastics already created an ecosystem

Although it is presented as a solution to clean the oceans, ocean cleaning solutions are criticized. The main one is that the networks are caught larger plastic, but the 90% of the problem is that they leave behind germs. Another issue is that although Net allows marine animals to escape, the ecosystems adhering to the debris (consisting of microorganisms) were removed with waste.

“You see microorganisms associated with a wide plastic,” says Sonja Oberbeckmann, a sea microbiologist from the Federal Material Research and Test Institute in Germany. Popsc. Sainte-Rose is invading species that these “plastic surfers” should not even be in the oceans.

He remembers GPGP’s only one of the ocean cleaning approaches working in rivers. Preventing plastic journey to oceansMore financially applicable projects for local governments and the public is more visible. Meanwhile, cleaning the GPGP, which is more distant and complex, faces financing problems. “This is everyone and anyone’s problem, right?” It causes Sainte-Rose.

If the plastic in the sea is not everyone and anyone, who will move first? Sharing this article can be a good start because understanding the size of plastic pollution; Reduce the use of disposable plastics and recycle them correctly.