Trash islands
The first scored alarm American oceanographer Charles Moore. In 1997, Returning from the next sailing regatta, in the area of the Hawaiian Islands, he literally stuck in the "bog" from plastic bottles, old automotive tires and other Float "Good", Storing for many miles around. As it turned out, the garbage "Islands" grew in the Pacific waters since the 50s of the 20th century, but for a long time remained unnoticed until nature returned to humanity the first portion of his own waste. When in January 2008 As a result of strong storms, most of the coast of the Hawaiian Islands was literally buried under the 70-ton layer of plastic garbage, scientists were seriously worried: plastic – material cunning and, unlike other man-made materials, almost "eternal". For example, the matchboxes in seawater will not "live" and 6 months, the cigarette cigarette crucifies in 5-6 years, a tin can – after 50 years, and plastic is able to swim on the waves many hundreds of years!
Nevertheless, he still collapsing, crumbling and highlighting hazardous toxins into ocean water. The smallest particles of plastic are eaten by Plankton, and larger pieces are taken for food turtles and birds. Switching packages and other elements of plastic "soup", they will damage the stomachs damage and dying. The accumulations of garbage contribute to settling on plastic "confetti" of spilled petroleum products, pesticides and pesticides entering the ocean from poisoned rivers. No less dangerous for marine inhabitants and abandoned network fishermen in which only In 2006, 1074 representatives of the Pacific Fauna were confused and died.
All listed man-made "wealth", a limited cycle of currents, drifting in the ocean, representing the Giant swamp, which scientists called the Pacific garbage island. According to some data, the total area of the giant "garbagethorot" is already equal to the size four Germanium!
Who would have thought that An ordinary plastic cup, stolen by a gust of the wind from the table of a summer cafe somewhere off the coast of San Francisco, will be the real worldwide seaflore? Fallen in coastal waves and praised by a powerful California current, he will float towards the coast of Central America. Not far from Mexico, it is waiting for a regular "transplant": the powerful northeconomical course will deliver a long-suffering ass to the Japanese shores and give "from hand to hand" to the warm current of Kurosio, next to the East. There, inhaled with the cold waters of the North Pacific flow, the plastic traveler will turn to the south and gradually fall into the windless area with circular currents, from where he can not get out. It is here that millions of cups, bottles, plates and other unspecified plastic trifles form a giant "terrestrial", growing day by day.
But the plastic cup is a very ordinary thing, and trace his way from beginning to end is hardly possible. In this field, researchers have helped ; Rubber ducklings. When In early 1992 During the strongest storm, the ship, following China in the United States, lost several containers with children’s toys, almost 30,000 multi-colored rubber ducklings, turtles and frogs "dispersed" by waves in an unknown direction. They were worn throughout the ocean and nailed to someone else’s shores until the retired oceanographer Kurt Ebbemeier did not guessed the use of bright rubber toys as markers to track the route of any floating ocean garbage. For each propheter found or turtle Dr. Ebbemeier paid $ 100, Therefore, lost toys immediately began to flow to it from a variety of lights, and the resourceful American carefully celebrated the time, place and circumstances of the discovery of another find. Prior to that, Abbemeyer "calculated" the route of garbage fluxes on sports shoes, 80,000 steam of which was separated by the Pacific Ocean during a storm in 1990, but bright toys turned out to be much more noteworthy. Entering the data obtained in a special computer program for modeling surface ocean currents, scientists have solved the mystery of the emergence of the Pacific garbage stain, and in August 2009 they even went to the "scene of the incident", where they received a real shock from the scales of seen ;
But the Pacific "Macenit" is far from the only one of its kind. Most recently, French researchers discovered such plastic "soup" and in the Atlantic Ocean: according to their calculations, for each kilometer of the North Atlantic up to 200,000 plastic debris. A huge landfill is the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula, and the Russians deny their guilt: allegedly, the garbage "born" in Europe, and in Russia it carries Gulf Stream ;
Of course, with all this you need to do something! Some offered to "vacuuming" the ocean bottom, others – collect trash to networks and dump the volcanoes in Zhero, the third dream of plastic production, which would decompose bacteria, and the fourth are going to use garbage for the construction of man-made islands. So, the Japanese "trash can" island of Yumenosima in Tokyo Bay is already More than 10 years I am glad to the eyes of world fighters for ocean purity, and the Dutch promise to build a "raft" with the size of Hawaii.
Some activists began "general cleaning" of their coast. In 2006, volunteers from the USA, Canada and the Philippines were in a massive manner of garbage and only in one day (!) Caught more than 3000 tons of garbage. Australians joined the fight for the purity of the ocean even earlier: In 2007, the global press leaked information about a fine of $ 20000, written by the Far Eastern shipping company for the fact that someone from the team of the Russian vessel "Artist Zhukov" threw the packaging from under the meat right on the territory of the Australian Marine Reserve ; Well, perhaps it is the surest way?
