Macarons
Plastic Islands
1. fact
9 out of 10 sea-birds has plastic in their stomachs
2. fact
The islands aren't easy to clean up, because the islands can be more than 4 kms thick!
3. fact
In 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than there will be fish!
4. fact
Every minute a truck filled with plastic comes into the sea.
There are 5 big plastic islands in the world. They aren’t real islands but more like a soup of plastic slowly turning. The plastic is keeping together because of the current in the water. The plastic automatically goes to the middle of the current and stays there forever.
The islands are in the Northern Pacific Ocean, the Southern Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Altogether the islands are the same size as Africa! The biggest of the islands is the same size as Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark altogether!
The plastic island between California and Hawaii is more than a million squaremeters big. That’s the same size as Denmark 24 times!
Most of the plastic in the oceans comes from big rivers in Asia. In Asia they don’t have a reuse-system, so all of their trash ends up in the nature. They are now informed about the problem, and they are trying to clean up all of the riverbanks. They are going to get a new system as soon as possible.
On 60 days a plastic piece can float 1000 km away, because the current in the water is so strong. After a period of time, the plastic will turn into microplastic and you can read about that on the plastic page.
The Ocean Clean Up is a project that is about putting many kilometers of flexible pipes into the ocean. The pipes are going to catch all of the plastic on the surface of the sea, when it passes by. Many scientists don’t think it will work because that the ships cant pass by and they think the pipes will break under set big storms, but the project will still be accomplished.