Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Island of plastic

"Everything runs downstream, and downstream is the ocean."

There is an island just packed with shoes, toys, bags and bottles. This sounds like Utopia for (some) holidays-lovers! But reality is slightly different: it's an island made of debris; marine pollution gathered by ocean currents called the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.

Charles J. Moore discovered this 'island' in 1997 when returning home after competing in a sailing race. He came upon an enormous stretch of floating debris and with this, discovered The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This "island made of garbage and plastic" has roughly the size of the state Texas and is made of approximately 3,5mln tons of trash. 

Great pacific garbage patch image

The question now is what to do with this "man made" island. Scooping it all out of the ocean is not an option: it would cost a fortune and would kill the wild sea life in the nets. Another problem is that plastic, when in water for a longer period of time, dissolves into very small pieces, turning into a sort of "plastic jelly" which makes it harder to retrieve it from the water. And even if we manage to get it out of the ocean, what to do with it next? And how to tackle the root cause of the issue: the enormous amount of trash, generated by all of us, finding its way to the oceans every day.

At this moment various scientists are investigating how to tackle this huge problem, but it is not that simple. And while humans are trying to find ways to deal with it, the wild life keeps eating it, thinking it is food. It kills them and parts of the trash gets back into our ecosystem. So, as long as there is no solution for this problem mr Moore is right with his comment: "You can buy certified farm produce, but no fishmonger on earth can sell you a certified organic wild-caught fish. This is our legacy." 

Great pacific garbage patch picture

By the way, using less plastic and recycling more is an very easy way to do your share in stopping this island of plastic from further expansion!

 

Great Ocean garbage patch image

 

Please see also my other blog post with a TED video about the Great Ocean Garbage Patch:

 Great Pacific Garbage Patch Video

 

More information:

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

UN Environment Programme Report

Think Beyond Plastic

Project Kaisei

Comments

[Ellen]

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[Bart]

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[girl11]

This is very bad. I don't understand why more people aren't taking action even when this gyre isn't the only gyre in the world. If we don't do something about this it will become too hard to stop! I suggest we use biodegradable products and have cleanups every once and a while.

[Future Problem Solvers]

We are studying this problem in our Future Problem Solving class. We have brainstormed solutions to this problem. We suggest using recylced plastics and biodegradable plastics so that we can mitigate the damage plastics are causing the world's oceans. You can also upcycle many plastic items into useful everyday items or art. After all, "plastics are like diamonds, they last forever."
As children we are concerned about the future of our environment. We hope more people will take our suggestions to this problem.
4th & 5th grade students from Texas

[An 11 yr old]

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in ONE OF 5 MAJOR GYRES FULL OF TRASH!!!
Except for the small bit that has been incenerated all plastic ever made is still here and mainly in the ocean.When plastic breaks down it is in toxin form that is eaten by plankton then through biomagnification WE EAT THE PLASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!

[Freda guggenheimer]

Drowning in plastic: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France
There are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year. Worse still, there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide? Great video from the great pacific garbage patch!

[Tokyofriend]

That is the same thing.

[Melting planet]

The great ocean conveyor belt, great ocean garbage patch is that all the same? I love your great ocean garbage patch video

[Tokyofriend]

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch video :... A swirling sea of plastic bags, bottles and other debris is growing in the North Pacific, and now another one has been found in the Atlantic. But how did they get there? And is there anything we can do to clean them up?

[Andrea]

Yes, I agree, that could be an option. I know they have done that in Holland, but after 20+ years people started to get strange illnesses, so I guess it would only be a short term solution!

[J]

Very informative read. The solution to get rid of the patch is to meld it together and build on it.

[Boston mate]

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean.
The gyre has actually given birth to two large masses of ever-accumulating trash, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches, sometimes collectively called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California.

[Ahmed Djerbezi]

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N.[1] The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.
The Patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.[2] Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography, since it consists primarily of suspended particulates in the upper water column. Since plastics break down to even smaller polymers, concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper water column is significantly higher than average.

[Gerry Henderson]

Very interesting to read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

[Gerry Greenhead]

So hard to believe the Great Ocean Garbage patch exists if you can't see it with your naked eye.

[Super Trooper]

This is just a horrendous example of environmental destruction by human mankind.

[tokyofriend]

The great pacific garbage patches present numerous hazards to marine life, fishing and tourism. But before we discuss those, it's important to look at the role of plastic. Plastic constitutes 90 percent of all trash floating in the world's oceans

[Yashiguri]

The name “garbage patch” is misleading. There is no island of trash forming in the middle of the ocean nor a blanket of trash that can be seen with satellite or aerial photographs. This is because much of the debris found here is small bits of floating plastic not easily seen from a boat.

[Tokyofriend]

Very informative video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch!

[Jenny Morakis]

'GREAT GARBAGE PATCH' NOT SO GREAT AFTER ALL
The massive floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean isn't nearly as large as reports have claimed, according to a new study.

See the article here: http://news.discovery.com/earth/ocean-garbage-patch-exaggerated-110112.html

[Maria Lee Jones]

The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch is quite sad!

[Maria Lee Jones]

What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?
A swirling sea of plastic bags, bottles and other debris is growing in the North Pacific, and now another one has been found in the Atlantic.

[Green Trooper]

What is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: It is twice the size of France
There are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year. Worse still, there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide?

[Andrea]

Yes, completely agree!