Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 17 May 2017

Scientists find 38 million pieces of trash on Pacific island

NICK PERRY She said she sometimes of it was buried in shallow est was a baby pacifier. trash wash up every day on
Associated Press found herself getting mes- sediment on the beaches. She said they found a sea the island, which is about
WELLINGTON, New Zealand merized by the variety and Lavers said she noticed turtle that had died after 10 kilometers (6 miles) long
(AP) — When researchers colors of the plastic that lit- green toy soldiers that getting caught in an aban- and 5 kilometers (3 miles)
traveled to a tiny, uninhab- ters the island before the looked identical to those doned fishing net and a wide.
ited island in the middle of tragedy of it would sink in her brother played with as crab that was living in a Henderson Island is part of
the Pacific Ocean, they
were astonished to find an
estimated 38 million pieces
of trash washed up on the
beaches.
Almost all of the garbage
they found on Hender-
son Island was made from
plastic. There were toy
soldiers, dominos, tooth-
brushes and hundreds of
hardhats of every shape,
size and color.
The researchers say the
density of trash was the
highest recorded any-
where in the world, de-
spite Henderson Island’s
extreme remoteness. The
island is located about
halfway between New
Zealand and Chile and is
recognized as a UNESCO
world heritage site.
Jennifer Lavers, a research
scientist at Australia’s Uni-
versity of Tasmania, was
lead author of the report,
which was published Tues-
day in “Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sci-
ences.”
Lavers said Henderson Is- In this 2015 photo provided by Jennifer Lavers, plastic debris is strewn on the beach on Henderson Island.
land is at the edge of a Associated Press
vortex of ocean currents
known as the South Pa-
cific gyre, which tends to again. Lavers and six oth- a child in the early 1980s, as cosmetics container. the Pitcairn Islands group,
capture and hold floating ers stayed on the island for well as red motels from the By clearing a part of a a British dependency. It is
trash. “The quantity of plas- 3½ months in 2015 while Monopoly board game. beach of trash and then so remote that Lavers said
tic there is truly alarming,” conducting the study. They She said the most common watching new pieces ac- she missed her own wed-
Lavers told The Associated found the trash weighed items they found were cig- cumulate, Lavers said they ding after the boat coming
Press. “It’s both beautiful an estimated 17.6 tons and arette lighters and tooth- were able to estimate that to collect the group was
and terrifying.” that more than two-thirds brushes. One of the strang- more than 13,000 pieces of delayed.q