Plastic Bag Found In Marianas Trench - 36,000 Feet Below The Surface Of The Pacific

[hatrack]

The Mariana Trench—the deepest point in the ocean—extends nearly 36,000 feet down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. But if you thought the trench could escape the global onslaught of plastics pollution, you would be wrong.

A recent study revealed that a plastic bag, like the kind given away at grocery stores, is now the deepest known piece of plastic trash, found at a depth of 36,000 feet inside the Mariana Trench. Scientists found it by looking through the Deep-Sea Debris Database, a collection of photos and videos taken from 5,010 dives over the past 30 years that was recently made public.

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Last February, a separate study showed that the Mariana Trench has higher levels of overall pollution in certain regions than some of the most polluted rivers in China. The study's authors theorized that the chemical pollutants in the trench may have come in part from the breakdown of plastic in the water column.

Plastic has recently become a greater focus of the environmental movement, being featured prominently this past Earth Day, for example. While plastic can enter the ocean directly, such as trash blown from a beach or discarded from ships, a study published in 2017 found that most of it is flowing into the sea from 10 rivers that run through heavily

EDIT

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/plastic-bag-mariana-trench-pollution-science-spd/

[MuseRider]

1. We are such

horrible caretakers. Even when we know what is going to happen we continue. Mother Earth is going to shake us off like the unwanted fleas we are and when and if she recovers hopefully this does not happen to her again.

[defacto7]

4. She will shake us off

as if we had never existed. It will be as if the earth had a cold with a fever and humans were the virus. She will shake it off and continue without us. We only do ourselves real harm within our insignificant blip on the geological clock.

[democratisphere]

2. There are no excuses and this should not be happening!

[SonofDonald]

3. Plastic is a petroleum product

Since day one all waste oil generated by ships was pumped over the side, this has luckily been changed since 1990 but it's exactly what they did with it back then.

Then with all the natural seeps and oil from sunken ships it becomes part of the water column, untold millions of gallons.

And we wonder why the seas are polluted.

[mountain grammy]

5. And on that depressing note

I'm outta here for the day. The sun is shining, it's nearly 60 and DU is making me suicidal.