Rising threat: Pacific Garbage Patch's global impact revealed

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, is becoming an ever more serious environmental problem. Studies carried out by The Ocean Cleanup organisation from 2015 to 2022 have evidenced a notable increase in the amount of waste amassed there from around the globe.

During the seven years, the mass of plastic waste rose from 6 kilograms per square kilometre to 28 kilograms per square kilometre. The concentration of small waste particles also increased, jumping from 390,000 per square kilometre in 2015 to over 3.9 million per square kilometre in 2022. Scientists estimate that 74-96% of this increase originates from foreign sources.

Plastic pollution threatens the local ecosystem. Such a vast amount of waste is perilous for the fauna residing in the area. Animals can ingest or become ensnared in the plastic, and the waste can disrupt the global carbon cycle by interfering with zooplankton feeding. Moreover, new species have colonised the plastic waste, competing with indigenous animals.

To grasp 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, stresses that the rise in plastic fragments stems from decades of inadequate waste management. Scientists are urging a global effort to extract 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.

Experts highlight that while many countries are striving to prevent pollution at its source, it is also crucial to remove the waste already present in the oceans. According to researchers, this is the only way to curb the formation of increasingly smaller plastic fragments in the future.

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

The ubiquity of microplastics also presents 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, threatening 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.