http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/the_ http://questgarden.com/104/43/7/100603110329/ http://propelsteps.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/plastic-story-series-1-india- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Are you reliable when it comes to putting your trash in the garbage bin? What if I told you that out in the Pacific Ocean there exists a garbage landfill bigger than the state Texas? That’s right; there is an area of garbage that expands to cover an area greater than the second largest state in the United States of America. (For all of you who need a geography refresher, Alaska is first) This landfill is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in one of the earth’s 5major gyres, the North Pacific Gyre. An ocean gyreis a circular ocean current formed by the earth’s wind patterns and forces created by the rotation of the planet. Think of the East Austr alian Current in Finding Nemo,but only circular. The circular motion of the North Pacific Gyre draws in debris that becomes trapped in the center of the current. It eventually starts to accumu late up and thus an ocean garbage p atch is formed. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is actually broken up into 2 sections of the North Pacific Gyre: the Eastern and Western patches. The Western patch is in between Japan and Hawaii while the Eastern patch is in between Hawaii and California. The amount of debris in this garbage patch accumulates because it is largely made up of plastics, w hich are not biodegradable. The microbes that usually can break down other substanc es are not able to recognize plastic as food, so the plastic is then left to float there forever. Sunlight does its part to try to get rid of the plastic by photodegrading the bond in the plastic polymers, but this just reduces the plastic in to smaller and small er pieces (Moore 2008). The plastic is still there; i t just becomes microscopic and usually is eaten by organisms of the sea. When people first hear about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch most imagine a bunch of floating trash o n top of the water, but a lot of it is the broken down plastics that aren’t visible from above. A lot of this plastic can also eventually sink, which damages the ocean floor, while the rest remains floating or suspended in t he water column.
Transcript
8/13/2019 The Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Jeff Berens
Are you reliable when it comes to putting your trash in the
garbage bin? What if I told you that out in the Pacific Ocean
there exists a garbage landfill bigger than the state Texas?
That’s right; there is an area of garbage that expands tocover an area greater than the second largest state in the
United States of America. (For all of you who need a
geography refresher, Alaska is first) This landfill is known as
the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in one of the earth’s 5 major gyres, the North Pacific Gyre. An
ocean gyre is a circular ocean current f ormed by the earth’s wind patterns and forces created by the
rotation of the planet. Think of the East Australian Current in Finding Nemo, but only circular.
The circular motion of the North Pacific Gyre draws in debris that becomes trapped in the center of the
current. It eventually starts to accumulate up and thus
an ocean garbage patch is formed. The Great Pacific
Garbage Patch is actually broken up into 2 sections of
the North Pacific Gyre: the Eastern and Western
patches. The Western patch is in between Japan and
Hawaii while the Eastern patch is in between Hawaii and
California.
The amount of debris in this garbage patch accumulates
because it is largely made up of plastics, which are not
biodegradable. The microbes that usually can break down other substances are not able to recognizeplastic as food, so the plastic is then left to float there forever. Sunlight does its part to try to get rid of
the plastic by photodegrading the bond in the plastic polymers, but this just reduces the plastic in to
smaller and smaller pieces (Moore 2008). The plastic is still there; it just becomes microscopic and
usually is eaten by organisms of the sea.
When people first hear about the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch most imagine a bunch of floating trash on top of
the water, but a lot of it is the broken down plastics that
aren’t visible from above. A lot of this plastic can also
eventually sink, which damages the ocean floor, whilethe rest remains floating or suspended in the water
So where does all this garbage come from? About 80 percent comes from land via powerful ocean
currents, while the rest comes from offshore oil rigs, commercial fishing, and cargo ships. It can take
years for pieces of garbage from land to reach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but it will eventually add
to the problem. Plastic can be washed from the interiors of continents to the sea via sewers, streams
and rivers, or it might simply wash away from the coast.
You can imagine how harmful all this garbage is to the
marine life. The garbage is commonly mistaken for food
while other aquatic life becomes strangled in the plastic
rings used to hold six-packs of soda together. (Betts,
2008; Thompson et al., 2009a) By dissecting beached
marine animals, or by initiating regurgitation in some
seabirds, their gut contents can be examined for the
presence of plastics, which can then be recognized and
recorded (van Franeker, 2010). With commercial
fisherman now turning to plastic nets instead of rope
nets because of their low cost and high durability, this creates an even bigger risk of nets being lost atsea and more plastic contaminating the waters. These nets can also tangle up sea creatures in an event
described as ‘‘ghost fishing’’ (Lozano and Mouat, 2009). Sea turtles, whales, and dolphins are all
common creatures found tangled in the nets.
Because the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is so far from any country’s coastline, no nation will take
responsibility or provide the funding to clean it up, but there are many international organizations that
are dedicated to preventing the patch from growing any further. Cleaning up marine debris would not
as easy as scooping up garbage. Many pieces of debris are the same size as small sea animals, so nets
designed to scoop up trash would catch these creatures as well. Even if we could design nets that would
just catch garbage, the size of the oceans makes this job very time-consuming. The trash on the ocean
floor would also be very difficult to get to.
Recently a similar garbage patch that contains the accumulation of plastic particles, weathered fishing
line, Styrofoam, wrappers, and raw resin pellets has shown up in the North Atlantic Ocean. It seems as
though patches like these are going to keep
popping up unless we do something about it.
As for what you can do to help stop the garbage
patch from growing, start with simply getting your
garbage into the trash can. These garbage patches
are only going to get larger, so every bit of effort to
recycle and clean up is necessary until a plan of
action is decided upon to clean up these water
landfills.
8/13/2019 The Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Jeff Berens
