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The Garbage Patch just grows and grows
building the Plastiki – photo by Dawn D (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that stew of broken down plastic trash that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is getting bigger.
An article in Tuesday’s Telegraph cites various estimates of the Patch’s size, which may have doubled over the past ten years:
Dr Simon Boxall, a physical oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, goes even further: “It’s the size of North America. But although the patch itself is extremely large, it’s only one very clear representation of the much bigger worldwide problem.”
Plastic waste spells death for a million birds and 100,000 mammals per year, according to UN figures. And as industrialization and consumerism show no signs of slowing down, expect more trash, death and growing garbage patches full of tiny plastic particles marinated in toxins. They get in the food chain and eventually end up in human stomachs and even in cosmetics that use marine extracts.
Half of plastic rubbish ends up in our oceans. Most of it sinks to the ocean floor while the remainder floats in the top layer and gets gathered and drawn to the center of gyres – or massive swirling ocean currents – the biggest being the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Fifty years ago, most flotsam was biodegradable. Now it is 90 per cent plastic. In 2006, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that there were 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in every square mile of ocean.
–Telegraph
David de Rothschild, head of Adventure Ecology, is drawing attention to this problem by sailing from California to Australia – right through the Garbage Patch – on a boat called Plasticki, which is made from plastic bottles. From a CNN report:
“It’s all sail power,” he said. “The idea is to put no kind of pollution back into the atmosphere, or into our oceans for that matter, so everything on the boat will be composted. Everything will be recycled. Even the vessel is going to end up being recycled when we finish.”
Rothschild sets sail from San Francisco in April.
by Graham Land
Additional resources:
Independent – ‘Green’ plastics may be worse for environment
Tags: garbage, great, ocean, Pacific, Patch, plastic, Plastiki, Rothschild, Telegraph, trash
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Thanks for the info, PK!
We’ve linked your group before here:
http://www.greenfudge.org/2009/09/03/breaking-down-garbage-patch-news/
As well as here:
http://www.greenfudge.org/2009/11/01/garbage-patch-news-–-giant-seabirds-gorge-on-plastic/
Excellent work and thanks again!
Ocean Voyage Institute is making a HUGE effort to clean up this mess. They are currently raising funds to go the North Pacific Gyre this summer with a team of volunteers to collect the plastic and trash that has accumulated there, as well as researching environmentally friendly ways to dispose of it. You can help save our oceans and the wildlife that live there by visiting http://www.dreamsailraffle.com, as well as posting our website on your pages!