Horner, who graduated from the engineering field at Brighton University, met his dream years ago. As a passionate diver, he exchanged cold water along the British coast for the sun-drenched paradise of divers in Bali. He soon discovered that this transition to another world would be no complication. He was struggling, for example, with the fact that only 5.7 million tourists went to Bali last year, and during the season, he is practically not in the capital of the island of Denpasar. But he still had his underwater world. So, when the tourists disappeared from the beaches, he went to Nusa Penida, sometimes underwater tourists, a heavily overloaded location.
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Instead of a stump skate
Instead of the mantle (huge rays), which is famous for this destination, but under the surface it found something completely different. Diving in a plastic soup filled with all sorts of garbage from the mainland. "Plastic straws, plastic jars, plastic bags. Plastics, Plastics, Plastics, "he later commented on his social networking video of diving. Shortly after publishing, it had 16,000 views, and it soon became a very good illustration of the whole pollution problem of the oceans. Yes, the underwater world actually shines on its video with tropical colors: green biscuits, yellowish bags, blue fragments of PET bottles. And sometimes the fish.
How is it possible? Despite its popularity, Nusa Penida is a relatively untouched locality, but it is only thirty kilometers from Denpasar to its misfortune. And the city has four congested landfills. Horner has been sinking for years and garbage is already used to it: "I have never seen anything like that in such a huge amount." It is sad that it was only a matter of three months since the self-government on the island declared it due to the disused waste on the beaches a calamity condition. But when the season ended, the local people stopped taking care of the garbage. At least before the next season approaches.
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The young diver moved on the same site the next day after the alarming video, but the garbage was gone. "The current is flowing somewhere else, but they're still somewhere," says Horner. "The concentration of plastic waste in the water fluctuates during the year. They are less dry, but when the monsoon arrives, they end up in the sea and more. "But the plastic soup has greatly surpassed his previous experience. The most dramatic moment of the entire video is the part on which the manta disappears from the scene. It strives to keep out of reach of ubiquitous plastics.
Nine pieces per hour
"The Balinese economy is heavily dependent on tourism," adds Janis Argeswara, a marine biologist at Udayan University in Indonesia. "And when mantas disappear, the locals will be horrified to see why they have lost their money from tourists." Water-borne plastic pieces, while the mantas of life are extremely threatening. Mantas continuously filter plankton from the water during the movement. Each hour they can get around ninety plastic fragments smaller than five millimeters, which they are usually unable to exclude.
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This is precisely the cause of the dramatic decline in the number of the world's largest ponds, huge twelve-meter sharks. They even filter plankton and become floating plastic waste collectors. In 2016, the last 7,000 were already in existence.
Author: Radomír Dohnal
Source: Ekolist.cz