The results of a 4-year study of coral reefs: plastic kills corals

Millions of tons of plastic waste each year into the ocean. These are bottles, packages, and those same plastic cells from under beer cans, in which turtles and other waterfowl tangle. All this has been known for a long time, but so far little has been done. At the same time, it is no secret to anyone that plastic, be it bottles, bags, or children's toys, is almost indestructible by the forces of nature.

The consequences are sad: plankton quickly dies from exhaustion, capturing the smallest plastic particles as food, more complexly organized living organisms die because the number of microorganisms that serve as food for other creatures gradually decreases. According to some scientists, plastic kills almost any life in the sea or ocean, although it does so quite slowly.

A new study based on the results of a study of 159 coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean shows that the reefs are contaminated with plastic, and the level of this pollution is very high. This is especially true for Australia, Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar - all of these regions are very seriously contaminated with plastic. Plastic waste is retained by coral reefs that become polluted and die over time.

According to experts , from 4 to 89 reefs in any region are adversely affected by plastic waste. According to scientists, plastic affects coral reefs in different ways, but the main one is one. Plastic, when moving in water, damages the shell of corals, and the living organisms themselves in the colony. And then microorganisms come into play, of which there are a large number in sea water. A massive “sea” of corals begins, and large areas of reefs simply die out, only calcareous growths remain and nothing else. The ecosystem in such regions is dying out. In addition, if there is a lot of plastic, it closes the sunlight, and the corals begin to feel not very good, they gradually wither, and then all the same microorganisms, mentioned above, come into play.


Yes, we know that plastic is everywhere now.

Coral reefs really die due to plastic. “There are excellent studies that show how much plastic gets into the ocean and how much bottom floats,” says Lamb, one of the graduate students at Cornell University. “Nevertheless, we do not yet have the slightest idea what we will be able to detect in the future.

Even after a small survey of territories it becomes clear that they are not in the best condition. In particular, this is particularly noticeable in the Asian region. Here, according to rough estimates of scientists, in the ocean, in the areas inhabited by corals, there are more than 1 billion plastic objects. Namely, this region is home to half of the coral reefs of the whole world. One of the most powerful sources of ocean pollution by plastic in the region is China.

Australian reefs are less contaminated with plastic waste, although the amount of plastic here is also large. “Huge volumes of plastic flow into the ocean from the Earth,” says the author of the study. Sources of pollution are countries where plastic is not recycled.

In addition to plastic, corals also die due to climate warming - after all, global warming affects all living organisms. Stress temperature fluctuations for corals are accompanied by the “abrasive effect” of plastic and the negative effect of microorganisms. As an example, scientists cite corals that are a few meters from each other. The colony, where there is plastic waste, does not look very good, while their neighbors, in the colony of which there is no plastic, are simply bursting with health.

In many countries they are now fighting with waste of this kind. For example, the British found a simple solution to the problem of the growth of used packages from supermarkets. So, for the first half of 2016 in the UK used about 500 million plastic bags. A year earlier, during the same period, 7 billion packages were used. The government of the country has reduced the desire of supermarket buyers to gain a lot of plastic bags in a simple and understandable way - has introduced a tax on the use of packages in the amount of 5 pence. And this is only the minimum tax, the stores themselves can set their own price. The tax was not introduced immediately throughout the UK. First, the scheme was tested in Scotland, then - in Wales, and then - in Northern Ireland. When officials noticed a positive effect, the tax became statewide.