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Wide scale pollution has turned some of the world's most beautiful beaches into trash heaps.

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Dirtiest beaches in the world: Top 5
Wide scale pollution has turned some of the world's most beautiful beaches into trash heaps.

From Hawaii's Kamilo Beach — which is so littered by man-made debris that it earned the nickname "Plastic Beach" — to Henderson Island, a remote, uninhabited island in the South Pacific whose beaches are some of the dirtiest on Earth, these former sandy paradises now resemble garbage dumps.

Looking at studies from different nonprofits, organizations, and researchers, we found 13 of the dirtiest beaches in the world.

Kamilo Beach, also known as "Plastic Beach," is one of the dirtiest places on the planet.

Located in a rural area of Hawaii's Big Island, Kamilo is a wasteland of plastic debris. In fact, thousands of pounds of man-made detritus, ranging from hair brushes to water bottles, wash up every year. Some of the waste is carried from as far away as Japan and Russia. 

One reason why this beach is so polluted is due to its proximity to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a high-pressure area that traps ocean debris.

It was discovered in 1997 by oceanographer and boat captain Charles J. Moore. Contrary to what many people imagine, the majority of the garbage is so small that it's not immediately visible to the naked eye. 

Rio's notoriously polluted Guanabara Bay gained media attention before and during the 2016 Summer Olympics, when athletes competing in events like sailing and rowing were exposed to its mucky waters.

According to an investigation conducted by the Associated Press, the bay water "contained dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from human sewage." Athletes who ingested as little as three teaspoons of the polluted water faced a 99% chance of infection. 

El Gringo Beach, Bajos de Haina, Dominican Republic

Pure Earth — a New York-based nonprofit formerly known as the Blacksmith Institute that aims to identify and clean up polluted sites around the world — once designated Bajos de Haina as one of the most polluted places on Earth.

Nicknamed "Dominican Chernobyl," the city outside El Gringo Beach is filled with chemical and pharmaceutical plants — not to mention an oil refinery.

The Inter Press Service news agency reports that these factories emit high quantities of toxic substances including formaldehyde, lead, ammonium, and sulfuric acid each year.

In addition to releasing airborne toxins, local factories are also said to dispose of waste by dumping it into the water.

Henderson Island, Pitcairn Island Group, British Overseas Territories

It may be a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but Henderson Island — a remote, uninhabited coral atoll in the South Pacific — has some of the most polluted beaches in the world. 

The island has been in the public eye in recent years thanks to Jennifer Lavers, a researcher at the University of Tasmania.

Lavers visited the island in 2015  to study its plastic pollution after seeing images of the detritus on Google Street View. Over the course of three months, her team found more than 53,000 pieces of man-made debris — a small portion of the estimated 37 million pieces of trash that litter Henderson's beaches.

Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia

After China, Indonesia is the second-biggest marine polluter in the world, contributing 10% of global marine pollution. 

That's why it shouldn't be shocking to learn that Kuta Beach, one of Bali's most popular tourist destinations, is often covered in garbage — especially during the rainy season when huge amounts of garbage wash on shores. 

Cheung Sha Beach, Lantau Island, Hong Kong

Over the past few years, Hong Kong's beaches have been scourged by trash and oil spills. While a massive influx of trash from mainland China washed ashore in 2016, a palm oil spill last August fouled beaches with more than 90 tons of oil waste, which congealed on the sand. 

Based on TripAdvisor reviews, Cheung Sha Beach — Hong Kong's longest — is one of the dirtiest. 

"I have never seen such a polluted beach in Hong Kong, you could not even make your way into the water due to all the plastic," a TripAdvisor user writes in her review of Lower Cheung Sha Beach. 

Another user writes, "Huge amounts of plastic and medical waste had washed up on to the beach creating an apocalypse that we didn't expect to see in cosmopolitan Hong Kong." 

Foreshores Beach, Sydney, Australia

Located between Sydney Airport and Port Botany, Foreshores Beach has repeatedly been ranked "very poor" by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage in its annual "State of the Beaches" report.

The abysmal rating signifies that this estuarine beach "is very susceptible to fecal pollution and microbial water quality may often be unsuitable for swimming." 

In 2014, Foreshores was briefly closed to the public when the water became mysteriously tinted orange. High in iron, the bright-colored plume was deemed non-toxic by the New South Wales Environmental Protection Authority. 

 

 

 

 

 

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