South China Sea waste visible from Space

China, a country often in news for all the wrong reasons is yet again in headlines, this time for dumping human waste and wastewater for years in a disputed area of the South China Sea. This caused algae blooms that have damaged coral reefs and threatened fish in an unfolding catastrophe, a US-based expert said on Monday.

Liz Derr, the US- based expert, who heads Simularity Inc, that provides satellite data imagery, said the dumping caused algae in a cluster of reefs in the Spratlys region which “is so intense you can see it from space.” Satellite images over the last five years show how human waste, sewage and wastewater have accumulated.

At least 236 ships were spotted in the atoll, internationally known as Union Banks, on June 17 alone, she said at a Philippine online news forum on China’s actions in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed virtually in its entirety.

“When the ships don’t move, the poop piles up,” Derr said. “The hundreds of ships that are anchored in the Spratlys are dumping raw sewage onto the reefs they are occupying.”

This comes a year after US escalated its actions against China by stepping squarely into one of the most sensitive regional issues dividing them and rejecting outright nearly all of Beijing’s significant maritime claims in the South China Sea.