On the occasion of World Oceans Day, which is celebrated, since 1994, every year on June 8th, we want to warn you of a danger that threatens the marine ecosystem that you maybe do not know.

It would be a huge floating island formed by plastic waste, which has accumulated to the point of forming a great garbage patch, which remains stable floating in the middle of the North Pacific.

The garbage patch was first mentioned in 1988 in an edition of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which discussed a series of analyzes of the waters of the North Pacific, conducted between 1985 and 1988, which concluded that ocean currents were leading to an unusual buildup of plastics and other types of waste.

Shortly afterwards the testimonies of seamen such as Captain Charles Moore, who after an expedition to this zone of the Pacific gave the alarm bell on a garbage spot, located in a vortex, created by the currents of the ocean.

This mass of garbage is composed mainly of tiny particles of plastic, which constitute serious danger to oceanic ecosystems, since not only large plastics, which choke animals that confuse them with food, are dangerous, small ones can also carry a great risk basis of their toxicity.

In addition, plastic also favors the colonization of invasive species, which adhere to its surface, displacing the usual members of the ecosystem.

For this reason, and because it is estimated that by 2050 in this area there will be more plastics than fish, for 2,020 a plan has been designed. The Ocean Cleanup (TCO) is a project created in 2013 by a 19-year-old Dutch boy, Boyan Slat, to eliminate the microplastics of the oceans, consisting in the placement in the oceans (not only in this area) of screens that adhere to the plastic, without interfering in the life of the beings that live there. The collected wastes will be sent back to the mainland, where they will be recycled, giving them a useful life.

Within five years, Ocean Cleanup plans to implement a one-hundred-kilometer system of barriers with which to clean nearly half of the garbage patch in the Pacific, between Hawaii and California. It would cost about 350 million euros, but could be the solution. Although, do not do good much if we continue throwing our trash to the sea.