Breaking Down: Garbage Patch News
I recently wrote two articles on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which can be read here and here. I tried to balance them somewhere between informative news commentary and cynical emotional rant, the second article having a bit more of the latter, I guess. Still, I’m finding you can never get too much garbage in your patch, or plastic in your swirl, if you know what I mean. Wink-wink.
In fact, as much as we’ve seen, heard or read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so far not all that much research has been conducted and most of it seems to have been done by Captain Charles Moore and the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. However, last month (August 2009) according to a CNN article, a team of scientists from the University of California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography took a three-week trip into the swirl, aka the North Pacific Gyre, to see what they could find. They posted daily blogs on the SEAPLEX website, including plenty of photos and video.
The Scripps team is now back and held a press conference on August 27th in San Diego. According to an August 27th article on the local California news site, the La Jolla Light, the scientists of the Scripps Institution displayed samples of plastic trash found in the North Pacific Gyre and tales of strange floating ecosystems based on large chunks of plastic waste. The SEAPLEX science team will carry out a large array of further studies on the samples they gathered throughout the Gyre, including:
- Assessments of debris density, type, and size in high-plastic areas as well as conducting toxicology tests of tissue samples and gut contents of fish and birds to determine the ecological impacts of ingested plastics. -lajollalight.com
SEAPLEX also plans a journey to another swirl, the Southern Pacific Gyre, scheduled for late 2010 or early 2011.
Video of UC’s Kasei/SEAPLEX project:
Does plastic biodegrade?
Some of it does, apparently. But don’t get all excited, as it breaks down in places like the Garbage Patch – as quickly as within one year – it may be releasing toxic chemicals into the water. A National Geographic article from August 20th, 2009 reports on the findings of Japanese research into oceanic chemical pollution suspected to come from degrading plastics. So the plastics in the ocean don’t just absorb toxins, they also release them, including cancer causing chemicals otherwise not found in nature. The Japanese study discovered that some plastics degrade at 86 degrees Fahrenheit, or 30 degrees Celsius, a temperature that is not universal throughout the Earth’s oceans, but certainly exists in some parts of them. Furthermore, as the oceans are heating up and humans are still dumping more and more plastic garbage into them, get ready for a thicker more poisonous soup to swim, fish and sail in. Now can we stop getting 50 flimsy little plastic bags with every little purchase we make?
By Graham Land
Additional resources:
www.projectkaisei.org
ScienceDaily article on Japanese study of decomposing plastics in the ocean
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Tags: garbage patch, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, pacific gyre, plastic, Scripps
Breaking Down: Garbage Patch News | Greenfudge.org…
I recently wrote two articles on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which can be read here and here. I tried to balance them somewhere between informative news commentary and cynical emotional rant, the second article having a bit more of the latter, I g…
Breaking Down: Garbage Patch News | Greenfudge.org…
I recently wrote two articles on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which can be read here and here. I tried to balance them somewhere between informative news commentary and cynical emotional rant, the second article having a bit more of the latter, I g…
Breaking Down: Garbage Patch News | Greenfudge.org…
I recently wrote two articles on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which can be read here and here. I tried to balance them somewhere between informative news commentary and cynical emotional rant, the second article having a bit more of the latter, I g…
Breaking Down: Garbage Patch News…
I recently wrote two articles on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which can be read here and here. I tried to balance them somewhere between informative news commentary and cynical emotional rant, the second article having a bit more of the latter, I g…
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