Coastal animal species were found in a plastic vortex between California and Hawaii: now the animals have created a habitat on trash in the oceans
That our oceans are polluted is nothing new. There are tons and tons of trash floating near and far from the coasts, but there are also remnants of natural disasters like the Fukushima tsunami. It is predicted that 25million tons of plastic trash will be produced by 2050, often ending up in the oceans. Humans are trying to patch up the damage they’ve created with some innovative technologies.
We don’t know if they’ll be enough, but we do know that the ecosystem has been scarred by this phenomenon. So much so that floating islands of garbage in the Pacific Ocean have become the habitat of some animal species.
The animals living among the garbage
The area where animals were found is known as the Pacific Trash Vortex. It is a non-coastal area, but in the open ocean. And animal life forms have been found on these plastic remnants.
And what’s more, these are coastal species, so they find themselves living hundreds of miles from their natural habitats, in an area of the open ocean between California and Hawaii. These are plants and anemones, marine insects, mollusks and crabs, and were found on 90% of the plastic waste of at least 5 centimeters collected during an exploration.
As we know, plastic is difficult to dispose of or recycle, and therefore in the Pacific Ocean has created a real habitat that was born to stay. And with it all the negative consequences on the ecosystem, the seas and animal species.
The Pacific one is not the only swirling pile of trash, there are at least four others. The one between California and Hawaii, however, is the largest, with 79 thousand tons of plastic floating in 1.6 square kilometers.
Invasive animals
In addition to concern about the conditions in which animals and plants are forced to live, there is the risk of proliferation of invasive species, for which scientists are very concerned.
The plastic in fact could be a vector that transports invasive species to the coasts: these are animals or plants that should not be there, that destroy the ecosystem and consume too many resources. To analyze this phenomenon, the study that led to the discovery of animals on the swirls of garbage was started.
Many of these invasive organisms had been brought to shore by the tsunami that devastated the Japanese city of Fukishima in 2011.