“A quantidade de detritos marinhos que encontramos neste lugar remoro, é chocante”, diz Mark Manuel, gerente de operações da Coral Reef Ecosystem Division da NOAA, em comunicado sobre a limpeza.

Transforming discarded nets into energy – CNN. 1 de abr. de 2013

Hawaii turns derelict fishing nets into electricity. CNN’s Kyung Lah explains.

That’s 114,000 pounds, or a daily average of 203 pounds per diver. While heavy machinery helps with some heavy lifting, the fragility of coral reefs requires divers to do most of the work manually. Russell McLendon – 19 de fevereiro de 2021 

Essas ilhas havaianas do noroeste são totalmente remotas, ou seja não é povoada por humanos, apenas por corais, peixes, aves marinhas, mamíferos marinhos e outras animais selvagens. Vivimetalium

Despite their distance from civilization — and their inclusion in a 140,000-square-mile marine reserve — these pristine islands are littered with garbage, 17 divers from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have collected 57 tons of garbage in 33 days since bottle caps and lighters to long-forgotten fishing nets.

Mas ai vem a pergunta: “Como tanto lixo chega lá”. A reposta para a pergunta é simples, o oceano traz muito lixo que ficam acumulados nas ilhas. Isso é um problema grave, pois podem causar sérios dano a baleias, golfinhos, focas e tartarugas. MNN

The islands are in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, one of several places on Earth where ocean gyres accumulate plastic that drifts from rivers, shores, ships and other sources.

A green sea turtle struggles in a net at Pearl Atoll and Hermes, one of three turtles rescued during the 2014 NOAA cleanup.

NOAA divers saw it first hand during the cleanup, rescuing three endangered green sea turtles that were trapped in abandoned fishing gear. “We probably got to them just in time,” Manuel told Hawaii News Now.

Since 1996 annual cleanups have been carried out on these islands, totaling 904 tonnes of rubbish over 19 years – putting this year’s 57 tonnes about 9 tonnes above average. Divers scoured the beaches and seabed, finding more than 6 tons of plastic on the shores of Midway Atoll alone. This included 7,436 hard plastic fragments, 3,758 bottle caps, 1,469 plastic beverage bottles and 477 lighters.

The dive team also recovered two 30-foot boats, presumably lost from Japan during the 2011 tsunami, and spotted two others they weren’t able to remove. The 2014 expedition filled every garbage container onboard the NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette, forcing divers to begin dumping recovered nets and other debris onto the vessel’s decks.

All fishing nets found during the mission will be used as fuel to produce electricity in Hawaii, part of the state’s Nets to Energy program, to which NOAA has donated wayward fishing gear since 2002. Every 100 tons of nets recovered can generate enough electricity to power 43 homes for a year.

Download the 2023 Marine Debris Calendar on our website now! (Cover art by Betty L., Grade 8, Florida).

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