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Plane search hampered by ocean garbage problem

By Tom Cohen, CNN
April 2, 2014 -- Updated 2147 GMT (0547 HKT)
  • Ocean debris diverts searchers for the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner
  • For years, environmentalists have warned about increasing garbage in the ocean
  • Most ocean debris, such as countless plastic bags, comes from land
  • Scientist: plane search seeks "one piece of debris among billions"

(CNN) -- Another debris field, another new and so-far futile focus in the search for Flight MH370.

More than three weeks after the Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared, one thing has been made clear: the ocean is full of garbage, literally.

"It isn't like looking for a needle in a haystack," Conservation International senior scientist M. Sanjayan said of the difficulty in finding the Boeing 777 aircraft. "It's like looking for a needle in a needle factory. It is one piece of debris among billions floating in the ocean."

"One piece of debris among billions"

Environmentalists like Sanjayan have warned for years that human abuse of the planet's largest ecosystem causes major problems for ocean life and people that depend on it.

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Most ocean garbage comes from land


More than a third of the world's 7 billion people live within 60 miles of an ocean coast, and their waste inevitably reaches the water -- either deliberately or indirectly.

Estimates from various sources, including the Japanese government, indicate that more than 10 million tons of debris -- including houses, tires, trees and appliances -- washed into the sea in the 2011 tsunami.

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In addition, discarded plastics -- including countless bags like the kind routinely provided by retail stores and fast food restaurants until a movement in recent years to decrease their use -- form huge, churning garbage fields in the rotating currents of ocean gyres. One in the north Pacific is estimated to be at least 270,000 square miles, or an area larger than Texas.

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Sanjayan said the plastic breaks down in the saltwater to form a kind of "plastic soup" that gets ingested by marine life. Millions of sea turtles die from the plastic each year, he said, and one in 10 small bait fish has plastic in its stomach.


The world's "toilet"

"The world does use the ocean as its toilet, and then expects that toilet to feed it," Sanjayan noted.

Many island nations and coastal cities lack infrastructure sophisticated enough to deal with all the waste produced, he said. In addition, much of that waste -- such as plastics -- now is so durable that it lasts for decades or longer in any environment.


Such growth far exceeds the capacity to deal with the garbage and sewage, Sanjayan said, adding: "All that waste in countries like that -- low-lying, prone to flooding -- periodically flushes into the ocean."

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CNN's Jason Hanna contributed to this report.

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