Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Prevent Pollution of the Planet

Probably, few people have heard of this phenomenon, but this is not surprising. It is common for the human race to easily forget about their mistakes and sweep up garbage under the carpet. So, about the garbage - did you know that there is a large Pacific garbage patch , it is also the East garbage continent, it is also the Pacific "garbage bin"? This is a pile of trash in the North Pacific. Garbage, created naturally by humans. In ancient times, the ocean seemed endless, for several days the path could not be overcome, so the distant shores and waters were always inhabited by various monsters. Those days are gone, there is nothing left of white spots , but it still seems to humanity that their planet is so huge that it can endure any appeal.

Many scientists sound the alarm calling for a reduction in CO ₂ emissions, which, in their opinion, lead to a greenhouse effect and global warming, threatening to flood many coastal regions from the melting poles. Others report a problem of putting satellites into orbit due to the huge amount of debris accumulated there and the spent satellites of the old generation. But few people pay attention to another danger - the world ocean is almost unable to cope with the millions of tons of plastic garbage that has been accumulated there for the last fifty years.

For the first time this problem was predicted in 1988 by researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States. And the fact of the existence of garbage spots was made public by Charles Moore, captain of the California Navy and oceanographer, whose articles described this phenomenon. Sailing the North Pacific currents system after participating in the regatta, Moore discovered a huge accumulation of garbage on the ocean surface. He reported his discovery to the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who later called this area the "Eastern Trash Continent."
')
The spot is formed by established currents that twist around a specific area. Its exact size is unknown. Approximate estimates of the area vary from 700 thousand to 15 million km ² or more (from 0.41% to 8.1% of the total area of ​​the Pacific Ocean). Probably, on this site there is more than one hundred million tons of garbage. It is known that plastic decomposes very poorly, it just floats close to the surface in the ocean, gradually collapsing physically and splitting into small fragments, but not chemically degrading.

Ocean animals eat pieces of plastic, confusing it with plankton, and so it is included in the food chain - if the animals do not die of suffocation or starvation, after eating plastic. In addition to direct harm to animals, floating waste can absorb organic pollutants from water, including PCB, DDT and PAH. Some of these substances are not only toxic - their structure is similar to the hormone estradiol , which leads to hormonal disruption in a poisoned animal. The consequences of these phenomena, the way they affect the ecosystem as a whole and people in particular, is not even fully understood.



Unfortunately, neither international recognition of the problem (the same level as, for example, agreements on limiting CO2 emissions to the atmosphere), nor proven technologies for cleaning the ocean from pollution, exist. In 2008, Richard Owen, a submariner instructor, organized the Environmental Cleanup Coalition (ECC) to deal with the pollution of the North Pacific. The ECC organization calls for the formation of a fleet of ships to clear the water area and open a Gyre Island waste recycling laboratory.

In 2009, the oceanographer Dr. Markus Eriksen and his wife Anna Cummins formed the “Five Gyres Institute”. The Institute is studying the problems of pollution of the oceans, already found garbage spots, and also looking for new ones.

In 2014, a team of scientists with the support of National Geographic spent nine months surfing the ocean, collecting information on ocean pollution and making a "plastic" map of the ocean.



In 2014, 19-year-old Boyan Slat, a student at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, introduced a system for cleaning the ocean from debris using autonomous platforms that float freely in the ocean and trash debris using flood barriers. Three years before, Slat was engaged in diving on the coast of Greece, and he was very excited by the fact that there are more packages swimming in the Mediterranean Sea than jellyfish. He decided to devote his life to solving the problem of cleaning up the ocean, and together with a team of like-minded people, he conducted a comprehensive study and collected more than $ 2 million to continue working through crowdfunding.

Their method uses natural ocean currents and winds that passively carry debris to the gathering platform. Then, solid floating barriers are used to catch and concentrate debris from the ocean, eliminating the risk of fish and other creatures becoming entangled by other methods, such as nets, when collecting debris. Although the method is not cheap (its implementation requires about 32 million euros per year), it is many times cheaper than other proposed cleaning methods.



The Ocean Cleanup organization constantly accepts donations and volunteer assistance. In November, the organization put together a second volume report on the feasibility of cleaning the ocean with proposed methods. The conclusion of the report has not changed - it was recognized that the method is realistic, and that with its help it is possible to clear half of the ocean in 10 years. Well, time will tell. For now we will try to litter less and not to use plastic bags.