A new report has revealed about the world’s worst plastic polluted land mass on the Earth. Yes, there is a place on earth that is almost completely filled with plastic wastes. The place is called Henderson Island, a small landmass situated in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Recently, on the occasion of the Earth Day 2018, the place was highlighted to make people aware of the ill effects of plastic pollution.
This year’s Earth Day is focused on the plastic pollution, which are one of the most dangerous types of pollutions on Earth because of their non-biodegradable nature. On Earth day 2018, the remote and uninhabited Henderson Island was the prime focus and a video was uploaded featuring the island whose sandy beaches are Word Heritage site.
The Henderson Island looks beautiful in the video and is a very serene place but it is also the most plastic-polluted place on Earth. In 2017, it was announced that the Henderson Island has the highest density of plastic wastes on its shores than anyplace in the world. The video featuring the Henderson Island was released by the ESA Web TV on April 20. A recent Sentinel-2 satellite image of Henderson Island was used to make the video. In the video, the Henderson Island looked like an ideal south pacific island but that was a picture taken from the high sky. At the ground the scenario is different. It was not the same Henderson Island that was fresh, clean, ecstatic a hundred year ago. Now, the world heritage site has become extremely polluted because of the high volume of plastic wastes.
In June 2017, a study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that highlighted how the entire Henderson Island is suffering from dangerous plastic pollution. The study was led by conservation biologist Jennifer Lavers of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania. Lavers and her team estimated that the Henderson Island might be hosting around 37.7 million items of plastic debris, which is approximately 671 items per square meter (about 671 items for every 11 square feet).
This plastic debris weighs around 19.4 tons or 17.6 metric tons. One can imagine how densely the Henderson Island is polluted by plastics. Plastic pollution is not only worst in Henderson Island. The whole world is suffering from plastic pollution. Hence, there is a need to take immediate steps to check plastic pollution and save our World Heritage sites.