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Sargassum field on Lake Worth beach in the US state of Florida on June 1

Photo: Greg Lovett /The Palm Beach Post / USA TODAY Network / IMAGO

"It stinks and it's everywhere!" the NBC reporter shouts into his microphone. It is located on the beach of Hollywood Beach, between Fort Lauderdale and Miami in the US state of Florida. "It's in the water, it's on the beach, it's washed up in record numbers." Behind him, the waves roll, in them streaks of brown seaweed deposited on the sand: sargassum algae.

For years, an increasingly large carpet of algae, also known as the "Greater Atlantic Sargassum Belt", has been forming in the middle of the Atlantic: 13 million tons of murky seaweed, from which an eight-kilometer-long clump has apparently detached, which now reaches the coast of Florida. Weeks ago, scientists had warned that the huge algae carpet could hit the popular beaches during the high season. Layers of rotting algae slime exude a pungent odor reminiscent of rotten eggs.

Warning of aggressive Vibrio bacteria

But marine biologists at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) have made a discovery that is even more worrying: the Vibrio bacteria that settle on the brown algae love plastic waste – and there were plenty of them in samples examined from the Caribbean and the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic. 'Our lab work has shown that these Vibrio bacteria are extremely aggressive and can search for and adhere to plastic within minutes,' the Guardian quotes Tracy Mincer, a biologist at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and FAU.

The algae belt, which stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the African coast, provides the perfect breeding ground for "omnivorous" bacterial strains and the associated "microbial flora" that harbors potentially potent pathogens. We are keen to make the public aware of these risks. Caution should be exercised, especially when collecting and processing sargassum biomass, as long as the risks have not been researched more thoroughly," he says, according to the British newspaper.

The Florida Department of Health advises residents and visitors to avoid sargassum. In addition, infections with Vibrio vulnificus "could be serious for people with weakened immune systems, such as people with chronic liver disease." The state's Department of Environment has promised to monitor the algae belt, and the state of Florida is also providing five million dollars to help municipalities clean up.

For example, teams with heavy equipment are out and about on the beaches, usually in the early morning tractors pull large rakes across the sand to sift out the algae. These are then deposited in the hinterland or composted.

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