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If one were to travel far enough in the Pacific Ocean, one might eventually end up in what is commonly referred to as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch“. Scientifically, the area is known as the North Pacific Gyre, a swirling vortex of under-ocean currents that come together and keep the ocean water from going anywhere but there.
Because of the vortex created by the ocean currents, the area has accumulated an astonishing amount of trash (garbage, rubbish…whatever you want to call it). So powerful is this phenomenon that oceanographers are saying that the area is nearly twice as large as the continental United States.
A dead sea bird with plastics in its stomach
Most of the trash in this floating island of debris is plastic-based, which means that it is not biodegradable. Instead, it simply breaks into pieces and creates smaller plastic pieces which then wreak havoc on the environment and the animals in the area. The plastics are incredibly hazardous to the marine life, most of the time so dangerous that ingesting it means death (either as a direct result or as an indirect result via the natural food chain).
Plastic in the ocean can lead to deformities in marine life.
Here’s the low-down on the island of trash in the sea, from SFGate:
The enormous stew of trash – which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers – floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii.
Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans.”
The report found that 80 percent of the oceans’ litter originated on land. While ships drop the occasional load of shoes or hockey gloves into the waters (sometimes on purpose and illegally), the vast majority of sea garbage begins its journey as onshore trash.
The Independent continues:
Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: “The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States.”
The “soup” is actually two linked areas, either side of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.
In addition to posing an environmental risk, the area is also a big concern because of health risks that it poses for humans living on land. Chemicals from the plastics can get into our water, our food, and into our systems.
Here’s a report from the Today show about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Poor turtle!
man thats reaally f*cked up
omg this is such a sad post!
WHAT are we planning on doing about it?
The question is, What are YOU planning on doing about it?
It is not what ONE person will do…What will all of us do!
nothing
It is disgusting what we have done to our planet. Our spiecies consumes without care to others we share our world with.
the people at the top are BANKING on the fact that YOU will do nothing about this. They have chosen personal comfort over truth and will fight to the death to preserve their spoiled stlye of living. On this point, and this point alone, I agree with the terrorists. In fact, this point about our society is exactlly the fuel the terrorists are using to stay afloat which no amount of military force can defeat. When you go to the store, ANY STORE, bring your own bag. NOVEL CONCEPT! That means bloomingdales ladies. ANd Ace Hardware gents. Recycle your trash, reuse your bottles, dont litter, remember to turn off the lights, and speak up when you see people slacking. Make it a priority. Quit your stupid job, go to school, take the right path. Stopping buying stuff you cant afford and dont need. 10% of your income is too much to spend on a TELEVISION. Stop watching television. Its not hard to be happy. People are just brainwashed.
I wanna do that to an animal…..ON PURPOSE!
WOWZERS!!!!!
I so totally agree with Islambad Fo Sho!!!!!!My HOMIES!!!!
That bird is so messed up
WORD!!!!!
Travel the world and you will see that the majority of this trash comes from rivers and creeks flowing through settlements in developing nations rather than the developed ones.
Most countries of the world have difficulty governing their own people and this includes ineffective management of sewerage and trash. One way we could reach out to these countries is through television. kids around the world now watch ICarly, Hana Montana and Drake and Josh. If only we could pursuade the producers of these shows to adopt underlying themes that would educate the kids of the world to these environmental issues.
Rather than using seven hundred billion dollars to purchase a diaper for Wall Street, perhaps that money can be used to begin addressing environmental issues on our planet.
how about you orginize a group and collect the trask and trade it for money for the beach so they can have more life guards
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/01/18/dont-truck-your-waste-to-a-landfill-truck-a-gasification-plant-to-your-waste/
Solution found.
Spamk me please!!!
This is a big problem now and a huge problem later. Right now almost nobody is aware these garbage patches exist. Even the map above is outdated as similar areas are now known to exist in all the world’s oceans.
While the effect on birds and turtles is clearly demonstrated here, the plastics effect all ocean life from the smallest planktons to the largest whales.
A bunch of plastic types will break down over time into small, plankton sized particles but do not break down entirely. They will drift in the currents just like plankton does. Plankton is the first link of the food chain. Plankton produces as much as 70% of earth’s oxygen so it’s kinda important. Research shows some areas of the ocean where plastic particles outnumber plankton by 45 to 1.
So many things eat plankton directly. Plankton eats plankton, jellyfish, fish, shellfish, shrimp and on up the list all the way to the baleen whales. Many more species feed on the plankton feeders and will therefore ingest the plastics indirectly.
Since there are so many types of plastics, the area of effect is by some estimates up to 2 miles deep as some are neutrally buoyant in sea water. Marine growth will cling to some of it and change it’s buoyancy. So the problem is not just at the surface. Clean up would be a gigantic project and since people are still only recycling under 5% of plastic garbage, the problem continues to grow at a ridiculous rate.
Now we are all aware of global warming but the actions taken to deal with it are like blowing spit wads at a grizzly bear. So now we must realize that we are killing the life on this planet at it’s very source. The lack of media and acknowledgement of this problem tells me that our governments know that we are probably doomed and have decided to give up.
As a side note, I removed about 30 pounds of plastic debris from the river today one mile from the Pacific Ocean. There was a small storm yesterday here which blew things around. It took me one hour. One man, one river, one hour. Thirty pounds of plastic. That says it all.
Thank you for doing that.
That is so sad i believe that this is our own doing and that the human race is not actually the smartest animal because look at what we have done to our home.
I feel terrible because I don’t know how to help.
some say we wont be able to fix this that it will be hear in the ocean forever and it wont be reversible no matter what we do to help at all! Try to help by picking trash up on the beach! >:(
for those who are trying to help thanks! :)
save the planet man! (and women)
I agree with Bob, yesterday I was on the eastern shore in the Carolinas and saw a plastic bottle top floating right in front of me and it made me sick! I picked it out and threw it in the trash. I hope it gets a proper burial instead of winding back up in our Oceans. We are our own terrorist’s, please have respect for our planet.
With all of our technical, engineering and financial expertise we could certainly devise a gigantic floating recycling plant that could actually turn the debris into cash – the garbage is free, right? The ship can even be powered by the same recycled material so as not to pollute. Clean the ocean and make some money; any investors?
Exploring further this idea would entail the creation of green technologies and would spawn perhaps many thousands of new jobs. Cargo ships would rendevouz with the recycling plant and return with the material for processing on a 24/7 basis. These recycling plants can be built on several oceans that currently contain enormous amounts of debris.
It’s really just a matter of whether the Earth can heal itself after civilization crashes. When did people (myself included) become too good to live off of the land that nurtured us and created us?
Peak oil, falling water tables, and environmental apocalypse (this is already happening…something like 200 species extinct EVERY DAY) will be too much for our civilization to handle. There are no viable alternatives to oil, despite what you hear in the media. Do some research. How do you think solar panels are made? The materials mined? Transported? Oil, man, and we’re running out.
Will we blow up the planet with the abominations we’ve created? If we don’t, can the Earth ever be the same?
It makes me sad, not because we might have to live by hunting and gathering again, but because one of us had to be the one that okay’d projects like nuclear power that produce depleted uranium, an extremely toxic element with a half-life of 4.5 billion years…and instead of storing it we shoot it at tanks (940,000 depleted uranium shelled projectiles in Iraq in the First Gulf War). Is electricity worth that? Who would say yes?
Recommended reading:
Plan B 3.0
Endgame: The Problem of Civilization
Health and the Rise of Civilization
…every day we contribute.
Humanity only cares about whats knocking on their front door. Unfortunatly the only people able to really do anything about this – WONT! At least not until the Vortex gets so close to land that the chemicals start to flow ashore and cause helath problems for everyone breathing it. Or some ones child get sucked into the pull of the patch. Until then its OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND.
This is one thing i wanna study the most. This is my dream to fix this vortex. I am not a littler nazi i just wanna put out there that recycaling evreything helps
if groups like greenpeace or so serious about saving the whales and the planet then they should be out there picking it up
or do they just go out there and say what a shame it is, take some picturse and leave it for someone else?
dont worry the world is a giant toilet and its getting ready to flush anyway
Greenpeace used to do stuff to fix problems like this but now what?! They got scared by a bunch of lawyers and they wont do anything to help. Its up to us now we need to get people to see what we are doing and teach them how to help, not by preaching at them but by example!
ohh……..poor little turtle!
yeah and the bird too it has eaten so much plastic :(
i think that that turtle is sad…… a turtle that is sad makes me sadd……………….poor little turle