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Are you aware that in the Pacific Ocean there is a massive, well, mass of floating plastic and other debris. It’s located in the northwest part of the Pacific Ocean, approximately a thousand miles off the coast of California.
It’s been dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it makes up perhaps thousands of miles of open ocean. Gross right? Researchers are cracking down on it and trying to find out where all this garbage is coming from and why it is gathering there in such quantity.
Now researchers are trying to learn more about the sea-bound trash zone and perhaps find answers to basic questions. The crew on the job is a group of scientists from the University of California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and they plan to spend 3 weeks studying the debris field.
“There may be a misapprehension … that if you got out there and stood on the middle of a deck you’d see nothing but plastic litter from horizon to horizon,” said Robert Knox, deputy director for research at the Scripps Institution.
“It’s relatively sparse, and you might or might not see something visible to the human eye at any particular location out there,” Knox says. “Certainly one does encounter pieces of plastic stuff that are big enough to see. But the other side of the puzzle is all the little bits and pieces of plastic that you can’t even see unless you scoop up a sample of seawater and see what’s in there.”
“I think it’s a little misleading to think of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a great big island that you could practically get out and walk on, but the point is it’s a big area of ocean. So even a few pieces of plastic per square meter amounts to a lot of plastic when you add it up over this enormous ocean area.”
The information this new group of scientists are looking for are vital to combating the problem and making sure this kind of thing can be avoided in the future. Here are some of the answers they are seeking concerning the garbage patch:
1) How much garbage is there?
2) How big is the debris in the area?
3) What is the majority of the debris made of?
4) How deep does the garbage go, is it just on the surface?
5) How does all of this thrown away plastic and other material affect the food chain?
They are pretty sure that the vast majority of the garbage in the area is made up of different types of plastic and they want to know how that is affecting the marine life as well as birds etc. etc. who feed in the area.
While there are many facts they don’t yet know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch there are some things they do know:
The size of this zone is massive, perhaps as big as Texas. They are also pretty sure that the plastic began it’s journey in the ocean as bigger pieces but over time has been broken down into small bits like confetti that is most likely sitting just under the surface like so many bits of confetti. Just think, thousands of miles of shredded plastic bits that fish and birds are ingesting as we speak.
While other oceans, rivers and seas have debris fields of their own, at this time it seems as though the Pacific Patch is the largest by far. Rusty Brainard with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believes that this debris field contains not only plastic but also huge masses of fishing nets, which destroys ecosystems around the Hawaiian Islands.
What makes plastic so deadly is that as it breaks down and degrades it becomes smaller and smaller bits of poison that seabirds mistake it for food. They then dive down and eat it.
Brainard says they’ve found many, many skeletons of seabirds on the Islands and “their gut content is just filled with plastic.” How many other animals are eating plastic? Birds eat it, something else eats the bird which in turn is eaten by something else until these toxins finally find their way into our own diet.
Scary thought.
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These Garbage Pail Kids tshirts are usually awesome
Ohh my god….didn’t knew its existence before reading this post…its horrible….
not only this is a massive threat to the pacific but I think why don’t USA recycles this massive garbage, earn some profit in any way and let also stop the pacific from dying.
Thanks
Sooner or later the ocean will become garbage. So I hope people are well-disciplined enough to not let that happen.
Unbelievable it seems Great Pacific Garbage Patch is moving, how much it will cost to clean it up ?
What a pity scene! Is very sad that the waste things are thrown into the sea.It will certainly pollute the sea.It will be a difficult task to clean the sea.
It certainly is a scary thought!This is absolutely shocking..hearing about it for the first time.I hope some action is taken fast before some serious disease breaks out.
This is great.
I’m totally shocked
I just hope it not too far gone
This is a tragedy, At Coastal Carolina University I attended a seminar on marine life that talked alot about this problem and ways to combat it.
It is seriously disgusting at how some people treat the one and only habitat we have. The plastic also breaks down naturally due to friction as the waves pound them. It turns into microscopic balls which then end up being swallowed by fish which feed on plankton, which are then eaten by bigger predator fish which then end up on your dinner plate. Nice!
O my god, I never knew about its existence. Its horrible.
Keep working ,great job!
Horrible. How did this build up? Must be the changing sea current but in an area where there’s no island or civilization near, it’s a puzzle as to how this got into this mess.
I’d heard that albatross feed their young bits of the plastic. They grow up and eventually die filled with plastic rubbish. It’s horrible.
Thanks for the great article! I thought the great garbage patch was mostly solid pieces of plastic. At least the media seems to infer as much. Still a big problem, but nice to know the truth. Thanks for clarifying this.
Thanks for the great post!
Am I the only person who noticed that this article is a total fraud? Those pictures are NOT pictures of the ocean, and if you do actual research on this “garbage patch”, you’ll find that it is nowhere near as bad as the article pretends it is.
That said, it would be nice if we could get to the point where that garbage patch would go away.
I had been extremely pleased to find this the web page.I required to thank you for this massive study!!! I definitely enjoying every single tiny little of it and I have you bookmarked to find new points you publish.
This is so cool! I am going to go throw some things away now that I should recycle! Soon we will have a natural bridge to Hawaii so i don’t have to keep flying there all the time!
I think this is really an interesting thing because I have seen so many people are associated with that. I think this is one of the best thing to discuss. Anyways keep it up and keep continue with your valuable thoughts.
In an August press release detailing a recent 3 week expedition through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by research scientists from the University of California, led by Miriam Goldstein and fellow researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California- San Diego, Goldstein commented, “It’s pretty shocking – it’s unusual to find exactly what you’re looking for”.
In recent studies conducted by Dr Frederick Vom Saal from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and with joint researchers from Japan, studies showed an increase in onset Diabetes, Liver and Kidney disease, and most alarming, Miscarriages they believe to be related to oceanic fish consumption contaminated with residue from plastic containers and the toxic chemicals they contained.
We as Americans keep our beaches cleaned up. The debris is largely coming from undeveloped nations and some who think they are developed. They dump theri garbe on their streets, in their lakes, in their rivers, along their beaches, and think nothing of just dumping their trash over board on the high seas. It’s time the rest of the world started trying to do what we have been doing.
And if you look at the pictures on line of our desert southwest at the 120,000 square miles of filth, trash, and garbage the illegals and smugglers have left behind , you will see exactly what I am talking about.
Is there no one that cares enough to scoop it up and recycle it?
wow
I would like to know what I can do to help. Obviously, recycling the plastic I do use is one of the biggest things. But, I would like to know if there is an organization that needs our dollars to help them figure out how to get rid of what is already in the water system.
There are a lot of legitimate concerns about this garbage patch that scientists are researching. Your article is very misleading in posting these images. They are not of the garbage patch. Thanks for adding scary thoughts into the minds of people, rather than honestly informing them of the concerns. Very helpful.
Someone should clean it up, after the studies are done. One may think that it would cost too much to clean it up, but probably it is far more expensive to leave it there, as one should consider the cost of the damage it is doing i.e. cost of health for humans and animals, reduction of food sources, damage done to the environment (cost of protecting the environment) and the list goes on.
Something else – the materials that are found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be recycled and used for building and production
I have to go along with you, great factors you have made in your case.
Maybe you should make changes to the page subject title What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? to something more generic for your webpage you create. I loved the post yet.
We are doing a project on this garbage patch. We really want people to join in. Simply count the amount of plastic you use on the 17th of November 2010, and send us your list/video/whatever you want. It’s quick and simple and a way to think about the amount of plastic you use in one day.
We’d really appreciate people joining us and sending their results.
http://www.organictheatrecollective.com
check our green room on the website for more details or email myself (secretary) or Nessa (director of green initiatives) with any comments or queries.
stop being hippies, you freaks. stuff like this happens because we are a massive society, and it cannot be stopped until we stop growing. so start a holocaust or stop complaining. It is not like people can just be told ” Don’t throw stuff away! recycle more! WAAA!!!” people will say no way, and continue doing what is convenient. You all have no say in how others live, so stop caring. The situation will not change, and I will personally take a dumptruck and dump it into the ocean just because of this website. OBAMA SUCKS.
Rattling nice pattern and great content , absolutely nothing else we require : D.