A photo from open sources
The oceans contain about 10 times more debris than suggested recent studies. The new ones indicate that in the ocean contains about 250 thousand tons of garbage. Scientists have come to new numbers, comparing what is visible from the satellite with that amount garbage collected by fishing nets – says the scientific research leader Marcus Erickson. Decades of waste people’s daily lives flock to the ocean. They get to coastline, ports and estuaries, from where the current relates them to remote places in the sea. About 15 years ago, scientists discovered Large Pacific Trash Spot – Contaminated Pacific Region ocean from Texas. In 1970, researchers suggested that in the ocean is about 45 thousand tons of garbage, but did not come to consensus on how much plastic is thrown into the ocean, and how much time passes before fish and currents carry it to depths of the ocean. For many years, scientists have been trying to identify amount of this waste through visual observation and collection garbage fishing nets. According to Erickson, he and his colleagues For a very long time they observed plastic deposits in the ocean. According to their theory, about 5.25 trillion plastic floats in the ocean right now particles with a total mass of about 269 thousand tons. About 75% of this weight make up large plastic objects such as buoys, and buckets other fishing gear. Erickson claims the problem pollution of the ocean with large plastic objects cannot be solved with using the use of robots. Instead, he suggests incentive program – for example, cash rewards plastic trash fishermen. That way people cleanse the ocean from the consequences of their own actions. Andreas Kosar, ecologist at the University of Cadiz, in whose previous work the assumption of the disappearance of a large part of plastic from the ocean, claims the total amount of garbage in the ocean is not easy to calculate due to the numerous currents, as well as the wind moving the waste sometimes at very impressive distances.
Plastic
