Newborn Hawaii beach is already polluted with tiny pieces of plastic
“There's this romantic idea of the remote tropical beach, clean and pristine…. That kind of beach doesn't exist anymore.”
Only a year ago, streams of lava gurgled from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, blocking roads and inching across fields. It eventually reached the ocean where the intensely hot lava hit cold seawater and burst into tiny shards of glass and rubble: brand new sand.
Eventually, new beaches formed, like Pohoiki, a black sand beach that stretches for 1,000 feet on Hawaii's Big Island. Scientists based in the area aren't sure if the beach formed quickly after the volcano began erupting in May 2018 or slowly as the lava began to simmer down in August, but based on samples taken from the newborn beach, they know it's already polluted—covered with hundreds of tiny pieces of plastic.
Pohoiki adds to the growing body of
