Humans may never have imagined that the once-proud plastic products will eventually devour the world in which people live.

Various studies now demonstrate the presence of plastic in human samples around the world, albeit in the form of microparticles.

But scientists still don't know how this will change the human body in the future, but how do these plastics get into the human body?

People have formed a dependence on the use of plastic products in their daily life, and it seems that they cannot live without these polyethylene products.

These plastic products will inadvertently in various ways, such as the moment when the plastic package is torn, these micron-scale molecules will enter the human body.

In addition to these, it is the contamination of biological clusters, which is eventually fed back to the human body through the food chain.

The ocean is one of the places most affected by plastic today, where tens of thousands of plastic waste is thrown into the sea every year.

Even the Mariana Trench has not escaped the danger of being "invaded" by plastics. You must know that the depth of the Mariana Trench is more than 10,000 meters.

We have to admire human beings here, we have somehow set foot in the most mysterious places on earth.

How were these plastics discovered? What can we expect from these plastics? How does plastic affect the ocean? Will creatures in the deep sea be affected?

This article will answer these questions from two aspects of deep-sea plastic research and the discovery of plastics in the Mariana Trench. Next, let's take a look at why these plastics should not be found under the deep sea?

Plastic waste in the ocean

How bad is plastic pollution in the ocean

The issue of marine environmental protection has been a commonplace issue since the 1990s . Every year, environmental protection organizations stand up and call on human beings to reduce the use of plastic products.

But it keeps increasing every year, and as the population increases, the problem will get worse.

An academic report published in the Royal Society of England in 2014 identified the deep ocean as a major sink for plastics.

Researchers have investigated deep-sea sediments from the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Oceans in the form of fibers, and the main molecule that makes up this structure is plastic.

Marine environmental protection is a commonplace

But why are these plastics at the bottom of the deep ocean?

This is mainly caused by the molecular structure of plastic products. Generally, the plastics used are very durable synthetic polymers, and more than 30% of them are made into disposable items that are thrown away after use.

Most people have poor awareness of environmental protection, so most of the plastic waste is thrown into the sea.

Plastic collects on coastlines and on the sea surface, and then drifts to other areas with the activity of ocean currents.

Plastic waste in the ocean drifts around with ocean currents

The stable molecular structure of plastics means that they are not easily broken down, and plastics are denser than seawater, such as plastic waste such as acrylic.

The lighter polypropylene will pool with ocean buoyancy and be ingested or contaminated by microorganisms or marine animals.

The researchers' sample collection was mainly from the deep sea of ​​about 3,500 meters, and each collection point was separated by at least 9 kilometers horizontal distance, which can reduce the repeatability between samples.

The molecular structure of plastics is very stable

50 ml of seawater is then sampled and detailed analysis of the plastics present is carried out by microscopy, spectroscopic identification, etc.

The findings showed that all 12 sediment samples and coral samples were rich in plastic, in the form of microplastics, and all of them were fibrous in shape.

The most common plastics are polyester compounds, which then include polyamides, acetates and acrylics as well as other plastics.

trash in the ocean

Although there are not many samples in the analysis and collection of marine samples, scientists believe that the deep sea has accumulated a considerable amount of plastic, which may exceed 300 million square kilometers in the area.

On the other hand, this data analysis has made scientists realize that the impact of plastic has been underestimated before, and it is not clear what impact this plastic waste will have on marine life.

But it is certain that in the long run, it will cause physical or toxicological damage.

Sea creatures killed by garbage

The research on marine pollution was further analyzed and investigated by the Japan Marine Research Institute and the World Conservation Monitoring Center of the United Nations Environment Programme. This cooperation collected image data of seabed litter over the past 30 years, and mainly concentrated on white litter in the deep sea below 6,000 meters. distributed.

"White Adventure" in the 10,000-meter deep sea

Japan's research in 2018 was a complete wake-up call, because the survey actually found plastic bags in the Mariana Trench, which reached a depth of 10,898 meters.

The data of this study mainly comes from deep-sea surveys from 1982 to 2015, with a total of 5,010 surveys, which can be said to be quite rich in data.

The study shows that there are still 33% of plastic products in water depths of more than 2,000 meters , of which 89% are the most commonly used supermarket shopping bags in human daily life .

In the deep-sea waters below 6,000 meters, the proportion of plastic waste increased to 50%, and the proportion of single-use plastic products was 92%.

Due to the accumulation of time here, even in places where humans cannot personally set foot, there are traces of human beings. Humans are really powerful.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has also conducted plastic analysis on the Mariana Trench, focusing on the abundance of plastics at the bottom of the deep sea and the analysis of plastic components.

Colored plastic is the most common pollution on the seabed, mainly various plastic microfibers, usually about 1-3 mm, while most of the samples in the sediment state are below 0.5 mm.

At 10,903 meters of water, the abundance of plastics reached 11.43 pieces per liter , and the high seas area including the Northeast Pacific Ocean was four times more than the main body of the report. The content of polypropylene and polyethylene in the water body of the North Pacific Ocean was the highest. of.

The study confirms the presence of plastic in the sediments at the bottom of the Southern Mariana Trench, and scientists believe that much of the "missing" plastic waste in the ocean has been transferred to the deep ocean.

On the other hand, European and American countries have been using trawl nets and deep-sea submersibles to conduct many surveys on the seabed over the past decade.

The report pointed out that the larger the population of the seaside city, the greater the amount of garbage on the seabed.

In addition to these plastic wastes, there are also various industrial wastes such as fishing nets and tires. From the perspective of terrain distribution, these wastes are more likely to accumulate in low-lying areas on the seabed.

Observations from the analysis of ocean currents show that plastics on the ocean surface tend to accumulate in specific sea areas, and these garbage sinks into the middle layer with the vertical circulation of seawater, and finally sinks to the bottom of the deep ocean. From coastal waters to open seas, plastic waste may have been distributed to every corner of the earth.

Deep sea dumps are still healthy oceans

Further analysis showed that these plastic waste and debris will be broken down into fine particles smaller than a few millimeters with the movement and corrosion of seawater .

The plastic products that are mainly decomposed come from cosmetics and daily necessities, including some fibers dropped from synthetic fiber clothes during the washing process.

With the exception of deep seas like the Mariana Trench, even the Arctic Ocean has not escaped pollution.

Scientists have found high-density plastic particles in the deep seabed below 5,000 meters in the Arctic Ocean, and it is impossible for these pollutants to be recovered in a centralized manner, both practically and technically.

And now research has shown that plastic in the ocean can act at every level of the food web.

The latest research has found that microplastics have been found in crustaceans in deep ocean trenches, and the ecological assessment work in the deep ocean will also conduct new assessments in the future due to plastics.

There are many practical examples of marine plastic waste pollution. Today, scientists do not even need to go to the deep sea with scientific instruments. People can see these problems at sea level and on the coast.

Seals, dolphins trapped in fishing nets, whales, sea turtles, etc. ingesting plastic bags by mistake, white pollution has become one of the most serious environmental problems in the 21st century.

For deep-sea ecosystems, humans currently know very little about it, and scientists don't know how this pollution will affect the bottom biome.

Creatures such as sea anemones may use marine debris to expand their habitats, but deep-sea tubeworms cannot live like sea anemones. These ancient creatures are important evidence for the evolution of life on Earth.

sea ​​turtle trapped in fishing net

We have no way of knowing what kind of world the deep sea will become due to white pollution in the future. At the United Nations Ocean Conference held in June 2017, "healthy oceans" became the new sustainable development goal.

People want to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean by 2030. Facing the vast ocean, human beings should seriously reflect on their own problems, which is the key to whether we can live a healthy life in the future.