Millions Of Pieces Of Plastic Are Piling Up On An Otherwise Pristine Pacific Island
Millions Of Pieces Of Plastic Are Piling Up On An Otherwise Pristine Pacific Island
By Camila Domonoske, NPR, May 15, 2017
Henderson Island, in the South Pacific, is thousands of miles from any major industrial centers or human communities. But it's filled with trash — more than 37 million pieces of it, researchers say. (Jennifer Lavers/University of Tasmania)
More than 37 million pieces of plastic debris have accumulated on a remote island in the South Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest city, according to estimates from researchers who documented the accumulating trash.
Turtles get tangled in fishing line, and hermit crabs make their homes in plastic containers. The high-tide line is demarcated by litter. Small scraps of plastic are buried inches deep into the sandy beaches.
It's the highest density of debris reported anywhere in the world, scientists say. Their research on trash accumulated at Henderson Island, largest of the the Pitcairn Islands, was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The island is uninhabited and visited by scientists only once or twice a decade, according to the University of Tasmania. But ocean currents bring a steady stream of plastic trash from around the world, from litter swept into storm drains to debris dropped off fishing boats.
"What's happened on Henderson Island shows there's no escaping plastic pollution even in the most distant parts of our oceans," lead author Jennifer Lavers said in a statement released by the university. "Far from being the pristine 'deserted island' that people might imagine of such a remote place, Henderson Island is a shocking but typical example of how plastic debris is affecting the environment on a global scale."
There are no major factories or towns within 3,100 miles of the island, the scientists say. So all that trash — more than 17 tons of it, with thousands of new individual pieces arriving each day — travels long distances through the ocean before arriving on the white-sand beaches.
The researchers call the pace of accumulation "exceptional." And it has consequences: The trash interferes with sea turtle nests and poses a threat to seabirds that can get caught in the debris.
Researchers say Henderson Island is polluted with the highest density of plastic trash ever recorded in the field. (Jennifer Lavers/University of Tasmania)
But the scale of the problem extends far beyond this isolated island, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. In their paper, the researchers note that the masses of trash on Henderson Island "account for only 1.98 seconds' worth of the annual global production of plastic."
It's hard to keep track of where exactly all that plastic goes; much of it is "lost," vanishing into the ocean for parts unknown.
Based on their research, Lavers and co-author Alexander Bond suggest that some of the trash winds up in remote, uninhabited, otherwise pristine islands — "which have become reservoirs for the world's waste," they write.
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Another step by humanity towards destroying its habitat.
To destroy our habitat is to destroy ourselves. Are we as a species suicidal?
I believe so.
I don't think there is any doubt.
Sadly it would seem that we are doing everything we can to destroy the earth, and with it ourselves.
I remember volunteering for snow control at Grand Forks AFB (it got me out of the office, plus it was 3 days on and 4 days off) and we would go out to spend a few days at the Launch Control Facilities and spend time digging snow off from the tops of the underground silos. When taking a break you could stand up and look down into one of the air vents and actually see the warhead on top of the Minuteman III. Inside of that warhead were actually three separate individually programmable and aim-able nuclear warheads that would come out when the tip of the missile came apart during reentry from space. Each one was many, many times more powerful then the Hiroshima bomb. I used to stare at them and just think of how many we had and that Minot AFB to the West of us had the same number, to say nothing of both of us had B52 wings that each BUFF carried 20 smaller Nuclear weapons. This was the mid-1970's and the state of North Dakota by itself was the third largest Nuclear power in the world. And the Russians had many many more weapons then we did.
That made me think we were suicidal as a species.
That's quite a vivid and frightening illustration Randy.
I was. I would think about it sometimes when sitting at the computer. At that point between us and the Russians we had enough power to destroy the world more then 300 times over and still have un-launched weapons and weapons in storage. Who needs that much power? I mean 300 times? That's insane!