Growing ocean wasteland: Plastic crisis demands swift action

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating accumulation of waste in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. It is becoming an increasingly serious environmental problem. Studies conducted by The Ocean Cleanup organization from 2015 to 2022 have shown a significant increase in the amount of waste collected there from around the world.

Over seven years, the mass of plastic waste increased from 5 lbs per square mile to 25 lbs per square mile. The concentration of small waste particles increased from 1 million per square mile in 2015 to over 10 million per square mile in 2022. Scientists estimate that 74-96% of this increase comes from foreign sources.

Plastic pollution poses a threat to the local ecosystem. Such a large amount of waste is dangerous for the fauna living in the area. Animals can ingest or become entangled in the plastic, and the waste can affect the global carbon cycle by disrupting zooplankton feeding. Additionally, new species have colonized the plastic waste, competing with endemic animals.

To understand the scale of the problem, one can compare the area of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is larger than Germany.

Laurent Lebreton, the lead author of the study, emphasizes that the increase in plastic fragments results from decades of poor waste management. Scientists are calling for a global intervention to remove existing pollution from the oceans.

"Our findings should serve as an urgent call to action for lawmakers engaged in negotiating a global treaty to end plastic pollution," says Lebreton.

Specialists emphasize that while many countries are trying to prevent pollution at the source, it is also crucial to remove the waste already present in the oceans. According to researchers, this is the only way to limit the formation of increasingly smaller plastic fragments in the future.

Microplastic, tiny fragments of materials, is present everywhere—from the depths of the oceans to the highest mountain peaks. The problem is becoming more severe as these particles accumulate pollutants, affecting the aquatic environment, soil, and air.

The ubiquity of microplastics also poses health risks. They have been detected in human organs such as the brain, heart, and testicles. Pollution with plastic particles can weaken the effect of antibiotics, posing a threat to effective infection treatment and potentially leading to antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Microplastics also enter the body through the consumption of food, such as fruits and fish.