Buying money in the ocean. "Great Pacific Smith's Flame" is a myth; The guards did not reveal the rich “Smith Island”

Ocean currents create great forces. In these apparently calm places, billions of tons of waste accumulate, which sinks into the ocean all the human irrelevance. The largest of these plastic islands has been talked about for ages. Recently, Americans officially documented the founding of the “worldwide dump.”

The investigators traveled nearly 2,700 kilometers on their ship, throwing nets into the ocean hundreds of times and pulling them on board for analysis. Most of them were shocked by the sheer volume of the plastic, which, in some cases, seemed to be worn out quickly.

The miniature crab does not want to lose the piece of plastic pulled out of the water (photo by Scripps Institution of Oceanography).

“In the ocean, it’s difficult to find out a lot of times in a row,” says the prolific investigator Miriam Goldstein, perhaps guessing her quieter biological past.

Further, all caution will be placed on us by the participants of the Kaisei project, which unites scientists, winemakers, ecologists, sailors, sports enthusiasts and simply ocean lovers from all over the world. They firmly decided to actively study the Great Pacific Smitten Flame to come up with a way to collect and process unnecessary and wasteful materials, for example, from diesel fuel.

Before the speech, we learned about another such “smart” fanatic, who, from plastic dances and other “exits”, has built a whole ship and intends to sail across the entire Pacific Ocean.

Among other things, we found (from top to bottom) anchovies, fish eggs and squid. Below: fish eggs, the first end of what they become... can you guess? (photo by Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

According to various estimates, close to 10% of plastic (out of 260 million tons, which is being generated rapidly) ends up in the ocean. Most of it accumulates in the lower part of the Pacific Ocean, but in other oceans there are also the same waste deposits, natural detritus. (Before the speech, the final point of recognition of SEAPLEX in the camp of the “Smitt’s Flame” on the shores of America, less is known about him than about the hero of this investigation. And the rap will appear even more?)

Marcus Eriksen, with the pre-study organization AMRF, has recently identified the connection between plastic waste in the ocean and plastic waste from industrial enterprises.

In 1999, there were approximately 0.002 grams of plastic per square meter in the Pacific Ocean; in 2005, the value had already increased to 0.004. Over the course of this hour, the amount of plastic that is vibrated has increased by dozens of times in the early America.

I know. This is Laki, the unofficial mascot of the expedition. The soft toy was recently discovered in the fishing waters on September 15, 2009 (photo by Scripps Institution of Oceanography).

According to data from the UN Environmental Protection Program (UNEP), nearly 70% of the waste that went into the ocean is lost. So it is still unknown what kind of solutions still exist at the bottom of the ocean and what biologists will ever get to them.

It is significant that laying out the plastic is not much easier for children. Old, unnecessary fishing nets trap sea turtles and dolphins, which, of course, threatens the numbers of their populations. Birds produce plastic waste for their chicks, so that they not only choke, but also rub with the products of waste waste in the body.

Jellyfish and other creatures mix the same “confetti” with plankton and also get sick (and it has recently become clear that jellyfish play an important role in the global mixing of ocean waters). Plastic is gradually being introduced into the grub lantsugs, releasing more and more sea essences, and at the same time people from them!

Some of the liquid washes back onto the shore, negatively affecting the lives of coastal species of creatures. Environmental organizations are working hard to convey the necessary information to key people, including industry workers, but it is necessary to pick up the seeds and analyze them themselves. The axis and the expansion of expeditions to new natural phenomena.

The skin of the people can think about something like the obstruction of the ocean. Because those people say that they live far away from the ocean, so they tend to become pregnant. This has long been completed by other numerical investigations.

Typical little one. Since 2006, there were approximately 18 thousand pieces of plastic per square kilometer of the ocean surface. In some regions, the quantity of confetti exceeds the quantity of plankton by six times. Photos taken during the expedition, organized as part of the Ship to Shore Education Program (photo from ship2shore.blogspot.com).

Ecologists suggest a simple argument: nearly 2.5 billion people rely on fish in pure form, which on average accounts for about 20% of their protein diet. The obstruction of industrial regions leads to the destruction of hedgehogs. A number of other products are also prepared from fish.

Nature's protectors always ask us not to think that the ocean is far away, but to constantly remember that in 80% of rainfalls the ocean begins from the kitchen sink, the drainage and sewerage pipes, the machine that transports waste to, first above ground burial place , an innocent picnic after some part, otherwise everything was lost on the grass. The creeks flow down to the rivers and lakes. Shoddy speeches from the wind are wasted in water from the board. And so on and so forth...

In countries that are developing, a little less liquid is generated, and the processing of curds is at an incredibly low level (photo by Wallace J. Nichols).

On the websites of various environmental organizations, here and there new brilliant (and not so brilliant) problems appear, as preached by original people.

“Once every week, our community sees at least one compelling proposal to clean up the ocean,” says Anna Cummins of AMRF. “The idea is to collect large rocks from the surface of the ocean in layers, then drop them behind a helicopter at the mouths of volcanoes to turn them into stone.” Others – “suck” the bottom, and then transform the plastic using alternative energy.”

The collected images have been carefully verified, and the data axis will be processed over several months (photo by Algalita Marine Research Foundation).

Moore believes that the shortest decisions may be made without the backlight information that it is necessary to change the switches to stop the waste from getting into the ocean. In my opinion, it’s time to try to clean the water from what has already accumulated near the Pacific Ocean.

Charles is strongly encouraged by Alexandra and Philippe Cousteau, descendants of the famous Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who promote the conservation of the riches of the light ocean. “We live on a planet, most of which is covered by water. Life originated near the water. The obstruction of the ocean is unacceptable,” says Oleksandra. Everything turns to the banal phrase: “It’s not where it’s clean, but it’s where it’s not clean.”

The model of illumination in the Pacific Ocean is smitten, so that it is evenly distributed over the surface

NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Scientists have conducted a comprehensive report on ocean plastic plume in one of the world's largest accumulations - the Great Pacific Smith Plateau. Based on the simulations, a mathematical model was developed, in addition to which they estimated the total weight of the smudge in the middle of the fields, which it occupies, and the division by size. It turned out that previous studies underestimated the dead mass of plastic in this galus by approximately 4–16 times, we write yesterday. Scientific Reports.

Through the configuration of ocean currents in certain areas, the ocean accumulates a large amount of anthropogenic activity. One of these is the great Pacific Smitten River, distributed in the Pacific Ocean between the coasts of California and the Hawaiian Islands. The area of ​​​​purchase is over a million square kilometers, and accurate estimates of the total mass of floating waste (including, for example, fishing nets, plastic floes, buoys, coils, flots, various types of packaging ok) has not been carried out at this time. They made it possible to estimate the minimum possible mass, which was estimated at 5 to 20 thousand tons when different types of butter were mixed.

A group of researchers led by Laurent Lebreton at the Ocean Cleanup Foundation carried out the extinction of several different types of plastic sludge in this region of the Pacific Ocean, and based on the obtained data, ecologists created a flame for the sludge And we estimated its total mass and area. Fragments of 99.9 hundredths of all the smudge on the surface of the ocean become plastic, then the main data for the model was based on the results of vimirovaniya instead of the flames of four types of plastic smear of different sizes: (size 0.05 to 0.5 centimeters), mesoplasty (from 0.5 to 5 centimeters), macroplastic (from 5 to 50 centimeters) and megaplastic (from 50 centimeters).

The vimiryuvannya was carried out from Linden to Spring 2015. In our opinion, 652 experiments were carried out in different points of the Great Pacific Smith Sea. A number of great units have been widely appreciated for their ability to capture the surface of the ocean from a flyer. Based on the collected data, a mathematical model was developed that allowed the mass, area and distribution of the soil to be divided into dimensions.

Results of numerical modeling of the slag mass of plastic smitten in the Great Pacific Smitten plough.

The calculation results showed that the area contains approximately 80 thousand tons of plastic, which in total occupy an area of ​​approximately 1.6 million square kilometers. This mass is approximately 4 times greater than the maximum from the forward estimates and 16 times greater than the value obtained as a result of the forward measurements of the amount of sediment collected in the trawl net.

The results of vimirs range from different sizes. The line marks the cordon of the Great Pacific Smitten Beach

L. Lebreton et al./Scientific Reports, 2018

In addition to the plastic mass of the Smith's plasma, an analysis of its fractional composition has recently been carried out. It turned out that over three quarters of all objects in the flame are over 50 centimeters in size, and almost half of the flame is made up of elements of fishing lines. In this case, for example, instead of the smallest sized microplastic mixture (mainly around the elements, tricks and techniques of other types of mixture), there are about eight hundredths of the total mixture by weight, and at the same time for 94 hundreds, so you can import the goods one by one (everything in the area is approximately 1.8 trillion units of plastic smite).

At the same time, the mass of microplastic waste has significantly increased over the past years: in the 1970s, approximately 0.4 kilograms of microplastic fell per square kilometer of the surface of the ocean in the middle of the 2015 year. and grew more than 3 times: up to 1.23 kilograms.

The differences in comparison with the previous ones are due both to refinements of analysis methods and to the increased number of measurements per hour that have passed between investigations mi. One of the possible natural causes of an increase in the volume of plastic, also called a tsunami, was caused by an earthquake that struck the shore of Honshu Island in 2011.

In this case, it was clear that the accumulation of plastic in the Smith's Plume was exponential in nature and this process was occurring more and more, as if the new Smith was only responsible for the flow of ocean currents. The results, according to the authors of the investigation, may help to understand the exact mechanisms of the increase in the mass of plastic waste and develop ways to combat its residues.

To understand what mechanisms in the ocean form islands or other objects that float passively (for example, a colony of various biological organisms), it is often necessary to use complex physical models i, based on hydrodynamic approaches or the kinetic theory of gases. For example, using one of these methods, it is now clear that the drift process consists of two main stages: initially small objects are formed into clusters, after which these clusters gradually diverge from one another.

Oleksandr Dubov

“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, “Pacific Trash Vortex”, “North Pacific Gyre”, “Pacific Smith Island”, just like that which is growing at a gigantic pace. It’s too late to talk about Smith Island, otherwise no action will be taken. Time and again, harm is done to the unnecessary environment, all kinds of creatures die out. There is great certainty that the moment will come when nothing can be corrected. Well, read the report about the problem of obstruction of the ocean below

The trouble began from that hour when the plastic was removed. On the one hand, there is an undeniable speech, which incredibly made people’s lives easier. I felt better until the plastic waste was thrown out: the plastic spreads out over hundreds of years, and the ocean currents always swirl around the majestic island. One such island, larger than the US state of Texas, floats between California, Hawaii and Alaska - millions of tons of oil. The island is rapidly growing, and today ~2.5 million pieces of plastic and other waste are dumped into the ocean from all continents. Fully unfolding, the plastic causes serious harm to the excessive middle nature. Birds and fish (and other inhabitants of the ocean) suffer the most. Plastic releases in the Pacific Ocean are causing the death of over a million seabirds in the river, as well as over 100 thousand individual sea lions. In the boats of dead seabirds there are syringes, igniters and toothbrushes - all these objects are shackled by the birds, mistaking them for urchins

"Smitten Island" began to grow rapidly around the 1950s due to the peculiarities of the Pacific-Pacific current system, the center of which, where all the smitten wastes, is clearly stationary. According to recent estimates, the size of Smith Island is over three and a half million tons, and its area is over a million square kilometers. “Island” goes by a number of unofficial names: “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, “Eastern Garbage Patch”, “Pacific Trash Vortex”, etc. The Russian one is also called the “Smith Iceberg”. In 2001, the population of plastics increased the mass of zooplankton in the island area six times.

This majestic body of floating smudge - in fact the largest smudge on the planet - is floating in one place under the influx of underwater currents, which are turbulent. The smog of the “soup” stretches from a point approximately 500 nautical miles from the coast of California through the coastal part of the Pacific Ocean past Hawaii and the ice does not reach distant Japan.

American oceanographer Charles Moore, a pioneer of the “Great Pacific Smitten Plateau”, also known as the “Smitten Circle”, appreciates that in this region there are approximately 100 million tons of floating moths circling. Marcus Eriksen, director of science at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (USA), founded by Moore, said to the teacher: “At first, people assumed that this is an island of plastic sour cream that you can’t walk on. This statement is inaccurate. plastic. It’s simply endless - beyond the surface, perhaps, the continental part of the United States will move even more."
14 fatefully, the young playboy and yachtsman Charles Moore, the son of a wealthy chemical magnate, settled after a session at the University of California in the Hawaiian Islands. At the same time, Charles plans to test his new yacht in the ocean. To save an hour, water for nothing. And after a few days, Charles realized that the smіtnik had flooded.

“When I stretched out a thousand years, when I went out on deck, a plastic moth began to cry,” Moore wrote in his book Plastics are Forever? - I couldn’t believe my eyes: how could we pollute such a magnificent water area? According to this accounting, I had to live day after day, and the end was not in sight...”

Swimming through tons of everyday exits turned Moore’s life upside down. Having sold all of his shares and using the proceeds, he founded the environmental organization Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), which began to engage in environmental research in the Pacific Ocean. In view of this evidence, this warning was often dismissed without being taken seriously. Of course, a similar proportion would have relied on AMRF’s best evidence, but here nature itself helped ecologists - the current storms dumped over 70 tons of plastic smudge on the beaches of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. It seems that he is the son of the famous French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, who decided to shoot a new film in Hawaii, without losing his heartfelt attack, having gained much attention. At the same time, the plastic is sealed not only for the survival of living creatures, but also for the death of several birds and sea turtles. From that time on, Moore’s nickname was to never leave the side of American snakes. Last year, the head of the AMRF noted that if the population does not limit the vicor plastic, which does not regenerate, about 10 rocks of the surface area of ​​the “Smitt soup” will subside and threaten not only Hawaii, but also the entire region m of the Pacific region.

Let’s say that the problem is “not to be ignored.” Although the Smittevaliye is not similar to the original island, its consistency resembles a “soup” - fragments of plastic float near the water at a depth of one to one hundred meters. In addition, about 70 hundred square meters of all the plastic that goes in here goes down into the bottom of the balls, so we don’t know for sure how much waste can accumulate there. The fragments of plastic are visible and lie under the surface of the water, so it is impossible to get from the satellite “polyethylene sea”. Smitty can be spotted either from the bow of a ship or while diving in the water with scuba gear. However, sea vessels do not visit this area very often, and even since the sailing hours of the fleet, all the captains of the ships have been plotting routes around this part of the Pacific Ocean, taking into account the fact that there is never any wind here. Before that, the Pacific Ocean is neutral water, and all the water that floats here is nothing.

Oceanologist Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a leading authority on the water supply of floating water, has tracked the accumulation of plastic in the oceans for over 15 years. The circle-smatterer Vaughn is on par with the living thing: “Vona moves around the planet like a great creature released from history.” When this creature gets closer to land—and that’s the case near the Hawaiian archipelago on the right—the results are even more dramatic. “Warto Smith’s flames are burning, as the whole beach is covered with this plastic confetti,” says Ebbesmeyer.

According to Eriksen, the mass of water that circulates widely, explains Smith, creates dangers for people’s health. Hundreds of millions of crumbling plastic granules - the waste of the plastics industry - are being quickly destroyed and gradually lost at sea. They smell like dowkill, acting like chemical sponges that attract man-made chemicals such as carbohydrates and the pesticide DDT. Then this brood is sunk into the hatches right next to it. “Those that end up in the ocean appear in the boats of ocean scumbags, and then on your plate. It’s that simple.”

The main polluters of the ocean are China and India. Here it is important in the order of speeches to throw the smitt directly into the water. Below is a photo, so there is no sense in commenting.

Here there are changes in the deep Pacific-Pacific subtropical region, changes at the point of the Kuroshio Current, wind flows and inter-water flows. The Ocean-Pacific World is a kind of wasteland on the Ocean of Light, where from the ends of the world, from the ends of the world, for centuries, a variety of moths are carried - algae, corpses of creatures, wood, the wreckage of ships. This is a dead sea. Due to the large amount of rotting mass, the water in this area is saturated with aquatic waters, so the Pacific Ocean steals away the poor lives - there are no great commercial fish, no sorrel, no birds. No one except the zooplankton colonies. Therefore, trade ships should not come here, military and merchant ships are trying to avoid this place, and perhaps the high atmospheric pressure and stinking calm will forever disappear

Since the beginning of the 50s of the last century, plastic bags, plastic bags and packaging, which, in the form of algae and other organic matter, have been badly affected by the processes of biological decay and have nowhere to go, have reached the rotting algae. Today, the Great Pacific Smith's plot of 90 hundred square meters is made of plastic, the mass of which exceeds the mass of natural plankton six times. Today, the area of ​​all Smith's beaches exceeds the territory of the United States! The skin of 10 rocks of this colossal area increases by an order of magnitude

A similar island can be found in the Sargasso Sea - part of the famous Bermuda tricutanea. Previously, there were legends about the island with the tricks of ships and goldfinches that drift in these waters, now the wooden snares have been replaced by plastic bowls and bags, and nowadays we are becoming increasingly aware of the smiths islands. According to Green Peace, there are currently more than 100 million tons of plastic waste around the world, and 10% of them end up in the ocean. The Smith Islands are growing faster and faster. We can only reduce their growth by moving away from plastic and switching to plastic bags and bags made of bio-folding materials. Please try to buy juice and water in a glass container or in tetra bags.

was presented as a floating island of plastic smudge, which stretches on the surface of the ocean, on the area level with India - a symbol of the cruel relationship between man and the planet.

Instead of a gigantic curtain of plastic containers, fisheries and smudges, there were nodules scattered over a large area, among which, over thousands of square kilometers, a total of nearly 1000 large objects collided.

Although members of the charitable partnership The Ocean Cleanup say that they have found more plastic in the ocean, experts say that the “Smitten Flame” was always a myth, not confirmed by current scientific research, and in the vastness of the real problem - the unsafe amount of microparticles in plastic water .

Images that often illustrate the "Smitten's Flame" are actually taken from the coast of Manila in the Philippines

Dr. Angelica White, an associate professor at Oregon State University, famously raised the “Smith’s Flame,” saying: “The use of the term is confusing. I would say that this myth is misnamed. It is not visible from space. There are no other Smitty Islands. It's just a soup of plastic that drifts in the ocean. Plastic in the ocean is true. Experts have verified that the highest concentration of microparticles in plastic is three gum-size pieces per cubic meter. What is troubling is the use of terms for the concept of “islands of plasticity”, “the size of two Texas” – these are hyperboles, which, in my opinion, support people’s overconfidence. We need to focus on the changes in the flow of sediment that enters the oceans.”

"Smitt's Blame" is also known as the "Pacific Smith's Blade" and was first described by the captain of an American ship, Charles Moore, in 1997, when he sailed from Hawaii to the south of California. Vin insists that he rubbed on the “plastic that floated here, so his eyes were gone.”

Plastic is collected in this area through circular ocean currents, which collect waste and bring it to the center. It is important that speeches need six rivers to reach this place from the United States, and one river from Japan.

Plastic floating in the ocean, discovered by The Ocean Cleanup team

The size of the center area is estimated at a million square kilometers, and the periphery expands by another 3.5 million square kilometers.

However, in 2008, Dr. White's team measured the ship and found that most of the plastic was contained in small pieces, which is actually unsafe, as some of it could end up being picked up by creatures that would feed on the plankton.

Professor Tamara Halloway from the University of Exeter says: “There are a lot of benefits to the Great Pacific Smitten Plate drive,” including its size and appearance. Dekhto cares that these giant floating islands are smitty, but not so. There may be approximately 77 thousand pieces per sq. km. The coastal areas near this area are more heavily polluted. Such plots, for example, can hold up to 4 million smudges per square meter. It is important for us to see how mobile and ubiquitous our information is.”

The Ocean Cleanup is an organization from the Netherlands that aims to clean up and recycle the Smith Islands. “The vigilance of the people – our continued mission – is to bring us one step closer to the clearing of the Pacific Ocean,” said director Boyan Slet.

“The first findings of the expedition speak of the news that it is necessary to solve the problem of plastic accumulation in the oceans of light.”

The organization, which is trying to clean up the oceans, has created long floating barriers that can filter out the sewage from the flow for further collection. Bar'eri are planning to reunite until 2020.

Doctor White seems like the cleansing scheme wasn’t thought out well enough. “One of the brightest prospects for this plan is that even large-scale filtration will reveal plankton, which plays a vital role in the ecology of the surface ocean,” says Vaughn.

Perch larva with friable nastins near shlunku

Because of the movement of the Smith's beaches in the ocean, people, looking at the shocking photographs of the "Smitten's continents", may think that entire islands are being transported by the sea, which are formed from the abandonments.

In fact, there are large patches of water on the surface with a high concentration of plastic near the top of the ocean. The average area of ​​one square meter contains approximately three pieces of plastic equal to a few milligrams.

The growing population and the growing world economy will accelerate the ocean of light. Floating in the ocean, no one screams wonder.

Smitten's fields are shaped by ocean currents and waters. In each of the oceans - the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic Oceans - the most polluted areas are the Smith regions.

Smith's "catch" of the sea expedition

Great Pacific Smith's Flame

The biggest "plastic soup" under the name "Great Pacific Smith's Flame" is growing in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean.

The top balls have the highest concentration of plastic sludge, equal to other flames. These are small pieces of plastic measuring less than 5 mm. Large pieces of plastic due to the process of photodegradation disintegrate into smaller ones due to the saving of polymer materials.

According to previous data, plastic waste in this region covers an area of ​​approximately 5 million square miles, and the total waste volume is over 11 million tons. This river is growing as a result of its gradual migration from the continents.

Smith's beaches in other oceans

In 2010, the population was exposed to the Smith Plate in the Indian Ocean. The flame is particles of liquid that are found at the top of the water. Roztashovane near the central part of the Indian Ocean. The process of degradation of plastic scraps is the same as in other oceans - the disintegration of more fractional particles without preserving the polymer structure.

The area of ​​the Smitten Plateau in the Atlantic Ocean is estimated at hundreds of kilometers. The thickness of the particles for smudge is over 200 thousand smudges per square kilometer.

The dangers of plastic smithereens for sea creatures

Fish and other creatures that live near water can get injured or die due to interactions with the creatures that swim. Fish can easily eat plastic small pieces, mistaking them for hedgehogs. Plastic disappears from the middle of their bodies and appears on the table of a person who bought fish in a store. This is how a person refuses to pay for his life better than nature. How plastic affects people's health is another serious problem.

It is necessary to talk about the cleanliness of ocean waters and find ways to reduce the negative impact of activities on the ecology of the ocean.

The most important problems facing the ocean of light

One of the options for cleaning the ocean from plastic is to use special technical devices that would collect plastic in an offline mode. Thus, Boyan Zlit from the University of Technology (Netherlands) presented a project for the creation of platforms that would collect the oceanic smite.

But this idea is more effective when fed through the light ocean, which covers 70% of the Earth’s surface. How many such platforms would be needed to survive objects from water?

The most effective and at the same time labor-intensive way to solve the problem is to avoid the uncontrolled expansion of plastic products, to find ways to replace plastic with more environmentally friendly materials.