Plastic waste alarm in the Pacific

Environmentalists who conducted a sea expedition in early 2012 said plastic waste in the Pacific is growing more and more than they previously thought.

>>>Garbage in the Pacific increased 100 times

According to CNN, the expedition was conducted by the University of Southern California (USA) and two non-profit groups - Algalita Marine Research Foundation and 5 Gyres Institute - based in California, USA.

The environmentalists of these two groups traveled on the Sea Dragon to collect garbage plastic from the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific Ocean to the northern Pacific Ocean.

Plastic waste in the Pacific increased dramatically

In addition, the purpose of this expedition is to study the serious impact of plastic waste on marine life in Pacific waters.

"We found a lot of plastic debris, each about the size of a grain of rice," explorer team leader Marcus Eriksen, who works at the University of Southern California (USA), told CNN.

Mr. Eriksen said there were lots of debris in the sea, 10 pinch, 20 pin and sometimes up to 30 pinch at the same time."Plastic waste is everywhere in the ocean ," Eriksen said.

Plastic waste is also found in the stomach of a fish Elagatis bipinnulata. (Photo: CNN)

During the second expedition of this expedition team starting May 30, 2012 from Tokyo's waters to Hawaii, they also determined the density and toxicity of plastic waste debris drifting to the consequences. of the Japanese tsunami in 2011.

Miriam Goldstein, director of Scripps Research Institute, California (USA), who led the same marine expedition in 2009, said the amount of plastic waste in the Pacific has increased 100 times in the last 40 years, almost all of them are fragmented and so are called 'synthetic plastic soup' in the ocean.

Ms Goldstein said that once in a net, the amount of plastic waste could be more or equal to the amount of juveniles and squid caught in the net.