Litter in the Deep
There is litter in the deep. Plastic and other litter has been found in the deepest, darkest parts of our oceans.
Submersibles found a plastic bag 35,849 feet down in the Mariana Trench. Let’s have a look at how deep that really is.
It is deeper than Mount Everest is tall. Look closely at the image, there are some fun facts in there too!
Divers have created a list of all the litter that has been collected from deep-sea dives over 30 years. As a result of that, it has been found that 89% of the plastic found was single-use plastic.
Have a look at this short clip provided by BBC Earth from their Blue Planet Live program
Isn’t that incredible? Figures vary, but an average of 546 containers are lost at sea each year, which results in huge amounts of litter and toxic waste in the ocean.
How does this affect me?
OK, so maybe you don’t spend a lot of time in the deep sea, but that doesn’t mean that this doesn’t affect you.
When plastics enter the ocean, they don’t leave. They spend years circulating around the world and, over time, they break down into hundreds and thousands of tiny pieces.
Fish and other sea life consume these tiny pieces and it therefore makes it into the human food chain. That is a very simplified version but you can read about food chains if you want to know more.
What can I do?
You can help by buying local and by not using single-use plastic items.
Zero waste shops are really friendly and always happy to help you get started. We have two locally, Two Rivers Refill in Christchurch and The Naked Pantry in New Milton.
See our Blog Posts for simple switches that you can make to avoid single-use plastics.
Sources for this post:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/05/plastic-bag-mariana-trench-pollution-science-spd/
https://shippingandfreightresource.com/containers-lost-at-sea/#
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/deep-sea-creatures-mariana-trench-eat-plastic/