All the plastics abandoned on the planet will serve to form a new continent. But for now it has created a few giant islands all along the seas of the world. This is not a metaphor. These are large deposits of plastic garbage trapped in sea eddies. created by currents. Seven of these islands of varying sizes have already been identified.
The waste that makes them up consists of everything from soda bottles to microplastics, creating a garbage soup in the sea that isn’t always confined to the surface, as it’s suspected there may already be a huge amount of waste on the seabed underneath. amount of waste.
One of the main ecological problems of these plastic islands is They combine with plankton, microorganisms that are essential for life in the oceans and are the origin of the food chain.. Fish feed on these plastic particles and they end up in our kitchen. Many other marine animals also swallow larger debris.
So what are the 7 plastic super islands on Earth and where are they?
1. Plastic island in the Sargasso Sea
It’s the newest thing discovered in the last decade. It was found in this sea in the North Atlantic during an expedition organized by Greenpeace to investigate another large waste deposit in the Atlantic. All kinds of easily recognizable waste could be found: shampoo bottles, fishing gear, hard containers, bags and others. According to a study by the Ocean Cleanup organization, it was learned in 2018 that its size was much larger than expected and could be three times the size of France.
2. Arctic plastic island
It was discovered in the Barents Sea near the Arctic Circle in 2013. is smallest plastic island It’s one of seven pieces found so far, but it still contains 300,000 million floating plastic pieces. This toxic ‘island’ contains 3% of all plastic litter on Earth, according to Science Advances research. The debris comes from Europe and the east coast of North America and moves along ocean currents towards northern Norway.
3. Plastic island of the Indian Ocean
Although its existence has been hypothesized since 1988, its existence was officially confirmed in 2010. This island has a variable extension as it combines areas with less waste density with more compact areas. In any case, this island has an average density of 10,000 wastes per square kilometer. It can exceed 3,000 kilometers in diameter.
4. Plastic island of the South Atlantic
spreading more than one million square kilometers and moves along the South Atlantic Current between South America and South Africa. There is not much information about it and it is generally not cut off by trade routes. It is estimated that it may contain 860 tons of material.
5. Plastic island of the North Atlantic
The area discovered in 1972 is estimated to have an area of approximately 4 million square kilometers. But the North Atlantic plastic island high waste density: up to 200,000 per square kilometer. It is driven by the North Atlantic current and has a length of hundreds of kilometers.
6. Plastic island in the South Pacific
It is located off the coasts of Chile and Peru and Eight times larger than Italy. It has a surface area of approximately 2.6 million square kilometers and contains microfragments of mostly plastic materials that have been eroded by time and atmospheric agents.
7. The Great Pacific Island of Plastic
It is located between California and the Hawaiian archipelago. It moves by following the ocean current of the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Have more than 60 years old and plastic island world’s largest. Its size is enormous, but it is still not fully defined: it is estimated that it may cover an area between 700,000 km2 and 10 million square kilometers. Therefore, at best, it will cover almost the same area as the Iberian Peninsula. or at worst the United States. The actual surface area depends on the waste density criterion used.
Reaches maximum concentration million waste per square kilometerTotal garbage ranging from 3 to 100 million tons. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Pacific waste island is growing very rapidly (fed by one ton of waste per day), so much so that It will soon be visible from space. The seabed beneath this plastic island may also be covered in underwater debris. Recent studies have found that approximately 70% of marine debris sinks to the ocean floor, so only a small portion floats.
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