Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Islands In The Stream

"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 Pacific garbage patch photo

 

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

[Green Monkey]

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

[Michael Johnson]

Why is the bottom picture of a beach? In fact, why are there no pictures anywhere online of the trash vortex twice the size of Texas? I've seen pictures of tangled fishing line, and some plastic bits, but if there is an island of plastic collected in the pacific and other locations each the size of the south west US, where are the pictures?

[Green Monkey]

I have been searching as well but can't find any evidence of the Great Ocean Garbage Patch or islands of plastic. Can anyone tell me where the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is?

[Peter Antonson]

You are looking at portions of Manila Harbor after a Monsoon a couple years back. These pictures have been misidentified all over the world.

[Green Monkey]

Fascinating stuff this Great Ocean Garbage Patch. Does it actually move or is it always in the Great Ocean.

[Environmental trooper]

Floating islands of plastic are a shocking result of human mankinds handling of mother earth!

[Denise]

You can apparently not see the island, it is a concentration of decomposed small pieces of plastic. Still shocking how we have created this mess in the last 20year

[Iain]

There are no floating islands. Most of the plastic is too small to be seen from a boat, let alone a satellite. That doesn't mean it's not a problem. What's more, the "patch" itself is just an area where plastic is more concentrated than the rest of the ocean. The plastic is everywhere. Plastic exists in ocean samples taken everywhere in the world, even Antarctica. The gyre is almost actually a GOOD thing, as it draws attention to the problem in a place that is essentially an oceanic desert. Better that it piles up there and we notice it and do something about it than let the entire ocean get polluted to the same extent before we figure out it's a problem. That said, the "garbage patch" is not the only area of concentrated plastic.

[Greenie]

Is the Great Ocean Garbage Patch the only major site of pollution or are there more than one.

[Greenie]

Pretty horrendous all that mess in the ocean.

[Chin Li Peng]

Great pacific garbage patch. Would not call that great though. It is pretty sad. Let's rename the Great Pacific garbage patch into the Human's shame of the ocean!

[Andrea]

Yes, completely agree!

[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?

[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.

[Maria Lee Jones]

The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch is quite sad!

[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

[Tokyofriend]

Very informative video about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch!

[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]

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

[Super Trooper]

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

[Gerry Greenhead]

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

[HurryUpToEnjoyLife]

Hi! I would like to tell that you sure succeeded in creating a gorgeous portal. In addition to that I want to ask you a question which is very exciting for me. Do you plan to write professionally or having a blog is a hobby?

[Gerry Henderson]

Very interesting to read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

[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.

[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.