Plastic bag at bottom of Mariana Trench

NEW YORK: On the deepest dive ever made by a human inside a submarine, a Texas investor and explorer found something he could have found in the gutter anywhere in the world - trash.

Victor Vescovo, a retired naval officer, said he made the unsettling discovery as he descended nearly 10,928 metres to a point in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench that is the deepest place on Earth. His dive went 16 metres lower than the previous deepest descent in the trench in 1960.

Vescovo found undiscovered species as he visited places no human had gone before. He spent up to four hours on the floor of the trench, viewing sea life ranging from anthropods with long legs and antennae to translucent “sea pigs” similar to a sea cucumber.

He also saw angular metal or plastic objects, one with writing on it. “It was very disappointing to see obvious human contamination of the deepest point in the ocean,” Vescovo said. An estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic waste has been dumped in the oceans till date, according to the UN.