The scientists arrived at the bottom of the sea, where no human had been before: they found garbage

During the deepest dive ever recorded, the American explorer Víctor Vescovo discovered new marine creatures, as well as plastic waste. (Reuters)

When Víctor Vescovo's submarine hitting the soil of the Mariana Trench, the sediment swirled.

"In the background," said the Texas businessman who turned an extreme explorer into a headset. "I repeat: deep down."

In a control room At over 35,580 feet above sea level, the Vescovo dive team applauded and celebrated. Congratulations were well deserved: he had just broken a record. The American had sunk deep in the ocean before anyone. Mount Everest in reverse would always be one kilometer from his boat.

Vescovo spent four hours there, he said to The Washington Post. The crack in the Western Pacific Ocean is one of the places more distant on the Earth, where the sun does not shine and the pressure is overwhelming. I was, literally, drawing a new territory, to chart the path for future researchers when he noticed something familiar between this earth that looked like another world.

A kind of plastic residue. Initial reports indicated that it was a bag or maybe a candy wrapper. But these theories were not quite correct, say the officials now. Whether it is debris or floating waste is secondary. The conclusion is, in any case, the mark of a spice that has contaminated the planet like no other. A city whose decomposition precedes them.

Vescovo saw it from its titanium cover. I contemplated the Depth of the Challenger Abyss, the deepest known point of the Earth, in the region of Hadal, a region of the ocean that bears the name of the god of Greek mythology, Hades. What he saw was sublime and serene.

Translucent creatures waved around her ship, Vescovo said. He was surprised at how alive his environment was.

"There was definitely life at the bottom of the ocean"he explained. "I was in no way dead … I felt very excited, privileged to see him, but also a lot of calm because it is really a calm and quiet place, soft. "

The expedition has identified at least three new species of marine animals, said scientists from Vescovo. including a species of amphipod and a crustacean that looks like a shrimp. However, even when the team discovered a new life, she could not escape the ravages caused by the man this will probably kill many more species faster than humans can discover them.

"I was disappointed to see human contamination deep in the ocean," said Vescovo. "With more than 7 billion people on Earth, the oceans will suffer a negative impact caused by humanity, but I hope we can at least minimize it in the future".

The reports on the Vescovo discoveries led to Chelsea Clinton, vice president of Clinton Foundation, who advocates ocean cleaning projects, asks a scary question on Twitter: "A dive 7 miles deep in the ocean in the Mariana Trench finds shrimp species and a plastic bag.How long would the first one survive there is more than the last ? ".

An alarming and historic UN report released this month illustrates a version of Clinton's point of view: As the human population has grown rapidly, the population of everything else has steadily declined.

"How long can the two trend lines follow opposite directions?", author Elizabeth Kolbert asked in an essay for the New Yorker." That is the key question asked by the report and it may turn out to be the question key of the century"

A summary of the report warns that "Nature is declining worldwide at an unprecedented rate in the history of humanity and the extinction rate of species is accelerating".

The almost 150 authors of the report found that human actions had "badly altered" 66 percent of the world's marine environments, threatening Extinction to one third of all marine mammals.

The only waste that Vescovo saw is not going to kill an entire species in itself, but its mere presence is another reminder of the profound impact of humanity. In a study published earlier this year, British researchers badyzed amphipods – similar to those identified by Vescovo – caught in six of the deepest pits in the ocean, including Marianas. They found plastic particles in over 70% of creatures that they badyzed and in all the amphipods of the Mariana Trench.

The implications of the study are surprising: Even before some of these underwater species are discovered, they already know one of the most prolific creations of man. Even before entering the taxonomy, they are crossed by a plastic path.

"Now we can say with confidence that plastic is everywhere"noted Alan Jamieson, a specialist for National Geographic.

The database on deep-water waste, from the Japan Agency for Maritime and Terrestrial Science and Technology, allows to closely examine some of this waste, including pieces found during dives in the Mariana Trench. The discovery of Vescovo would be the deepest part of this database.

The Vescovo expedition was the third time a submerged team at the bottom of the Challenger Abyss. In front of him, the filmmaker James Cameron made the trip in 2012. Lieutenant Don Walsh and scientist Jacques Piccard were the first to do so in 1960, but neither team was as immersed as Vescovo, who was also the first to repeat this feat in space. from one week. immersed in late April and early May. These trips were part of the expedition Five Deeps Expedition, filmed for Discovery Channel.

Underwater technology has improved so much, said Vescovo, that he sees this as the beginning of a golden age for underwater exploration. Your boat, made by a company called Triton, recently obtained a commercial certification, which means that more could be soon manufactured.

"Such a thing has never existed before," said Vescovo. "… we can do more (expeditions), to really open up 90% of the ocean that remains unexplored until now".

If this happens, a legion of scientists and adventurers could follow Vescovo into depths never before explored, all destined to make countless crucial discoveries. But when these submarines go back to the waves and the sediments settle in their wake, they will leave behind the trash they found there, the unmistakable trace of humanity.