When it comes to animals in the ocean, everyone can name several, whales, sharks, seahorses... But you know what? Another animal in the ocean that looks like a plant is the corals known as the "underwater rainforest".
Coral is an animal that exists in the deep sea, and in everyday life, it is not closely related to each of us. But in fact, corals, creatures that seem to have little contact with us, affect our lives every day.
Corals have high economic and ecological value. They protect fragile coastlines from wave erosion, and healthy corals act like "levees," with about 70-90% of wave impact forces absorbed or weakened when they encounter coral reefs. The coral reef coast, on the other hand, is formed by the accumulation of generations of corals and its shape is unique among tropical coasts. Coral reef communities contain many rare organisms and are important marine areas for the protection of marine biodiversity. Coral reefs are considered one of the oldest, most colorful and precious ecosystems on Earth.
More than 90 per cent of coral reefs in the World Heritage List were affected by major bleaching events in 1998, 2002, 2016 and 2017. In May, Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a famous reef group, experienced large-scale coral bleaching again for the fourth time since 2016. Climate change has led to a rapid increase in the frequency and scale of coral bleaching in recent years.
A new study published in the American journal Science found that plastic waste in the ocean can greatly increase the risk of coral disease due to the easy carrying of microorganisms such as bacteria. An international team of researchers examined about 159 coral reefs in Indonesia, Australia, Myanmar and Thailand, examining tissue damage and lesions in about 125,000 corals. It was found that when corals encountered plastic waste, the risk increased sharply from 4% to 89%.
Plastics have only been born in laboratories in the last century, and now it is only a hundred years old. But this synthetic material has taken the world by storm. It can be seen everywhere in life, and the total amount of plastic produced in the world is nearly 300 million tons every year. According to a study, about 4 million to 12 million tonnes of plastic were swept into the sea by waves in 2010 alone, and the total amount of plastic waste in the ocean is estimated at 800 million tonnes. This plastic waste takes 400 years or more to degrade.
Humans need to reduce ocean plastic pollution, which can slow down the pressure on corals and prevent corals from dying. Of course, this does not completely solve the plastic waste that already exists in the ocean, which is being converted into a large number of microplastics. What is certain is that plastic waste in the ocean is sure to be a long-term scourge.
However, corals on the planet face more than one or two threats, in addition to plastics, greenhouse gases caused by seawater acidification, water eutrophication, overfishing and other problems will cause colorful corals to become white, which is undoubtedly a lasting crisis for all kinds of fish and shellfish that depend on corals for survival.
In fact, there is an efficient solution to these crises, and that is garbage separation. Different from the pollution control of garbage on land, marine garbage is limited by the special water environment of the ocean, and it is almost impossible for people to collect and treat the garbage in the ocean extensively through traditional salvage methods. Therefore, the method of garbage classification is very effective in protecting the marine environment.
Doing a good job in garbage classification and reducing the amount of marine garbage from the source will help reduce the impact of marine garbage on the marine ecological environment, help the cycle of the ecological environment, and help improve our living environment.
Garbage classification is to classify, collect, and transport garbage generated in life, so as to promote the reasonable and effective treatment of garbage, thereby reducing garbage disposal costs, resource waste and environmental pollution. The goal of Guoxin Intelligent Innovation is to help everyone take action and solve the problem of garbage classification through social forces.