By Gary Thomas
A Load of Rubbish
How Big Is The Great
Pacific Garbage Patch?
What Is Found In The
Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Are There Other Garbage
Patches Out There?
Can We Clean Up The Great
Pacific Garbage Patch?
Sources and Further Reading
A Load of Rubbish
Floating in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean, a giant testament to
the throwaway culture that now pervades the world is growing at an
alarming rate. An area of ocean, which some estimate to be the size of
Texas, has become the planets largest dump, containing
non-biodegradable waste that has floated from land and gathered in the
North Pacific. Welcome to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
This garbage patch is not a firm island or blanket of rubbish as the
name suggests, but rather an area of ocean in which human debris is
concentrated – in some areas this concentration is up to 90%.
As plastics contain toxic chemicals, these can enter the food chain
when plastics are consumed by birds and marine life and cause untold
damage to large marine ecosystems.
How Big Is The
Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Though there have been many attempts to quantify the size of the
garbage patch, it has proved a surprisingly difficult task. It is hard
to measure for several reasons. Firstly, the trash cannot be seen from
satellite photographs or even from the side of a boat, as the majority
of the patch is comprised of tiny particles of plastic not visible to
the human eye. Also, the edges of the garbage patch will be constantly
shifting as it is not a solid mass. Furthermore, because the
concentrations across the patch are inconsistent, and ships tend to
only explore areas with high concentrations, a statistically accurate
representation of the size of the patch is still not available.
Many attempts have been made across the media to try and provide an
imaginable size for the garbage patch, with the two most common
comparisons being ‘the size of Texas’ and ‘twice the size of France’.
Furthermore, what is generally referred to as ‘The Great Pacific
Garbage Patch’ is in fact two patches connected by a thin strip. The
Western Pacific Patch is found off the coast of Japan and the Eastern
Pacific Patch is found between Hawaii and California.
What is certain is that the patch has been growing at an extremely
quick pace. A recent paper in The Royal Society Journal Biology Letters
says that between 1972 and 1987, hardly any plastic particles were
found in the area. Since this time, the concentration of small plastic
particles has increased 100-fold.
The size in some respects is not relevant however as the patch
should not be there in the first place. Below is a fascinating talk
regarding the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by one of the first men to
study it, Capt. Charles Moore.
What Is Found In
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The majority of the debris in the garbage patch is plastic, mainly
in the form of particles too small to see with the naked eye. The
likely reason for this is that many plastics float and can get easily
taken by ocean currents. Furthermore, plastics are non-biodegradable
and so will not get broken down by the ocean once offshore (unlike, for
example, food waste).
The last reason is that modern society is hugely dependent on
plastic and not enough is being done to reuse it. As an example,
somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used
every year along with 3 million tons of plastic bottles, of which 80%
goes straight into the trash.
Are There Other
Garbage Patches Out There?
There are several other garbage patches that litter the ocean,
though these are not on the same scale. There is thought to be a
growing garbage patch in the western North Atlantic Ocean, but not
enough research on this has been undertaken.
The exact processes involved in the formation of these patches are
complex and still the matter of scientific debate. In general terms the
patches are caused by ocean eddies and frontal meanders, and on a
larger scale gyres, which trap the garbage together in a concentrated
area.
Can We Clean Up The
Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Unfortunately, though more people are becoming aware of the garbage
patch, many scientists feel that there is little that can be done to
clear it up. The first problem is the sheer size of the ocean: the
Pacific Ocean has an area of around 15 times that of the United States.
Moreover, the concentration of the plastic is extremely variable from
day-to-day and area-to-area, so trawling the ocean for the garbage
would not be cost effective. Lastly, as most of the particles of
plastic are tiny, the water would have to be filtered to remove the
plastic-a process that could be dangerous to local sea life.
The most useful course of action for the future is to acknowledge
that humans have created this issue and to drastically cut our plastic
consumption.
Sources and Further
Reading
Cut
Your Use of Plastic, Plastic, Plastic, Smithsonian.com
De-mystifying
the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", NOAA Marine Debris Program
Great
Pacific Garbage Patch 'has increased 100-fold since the 1970s', The
Telegraph, 09/05/2012
Drowning
in plastic: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France,
The Telegraph, 24/04/2009
Kubota, M. 1994. A mechanism for the accumulation of floating marine
debris north of Hawaii. Journal of Physical Oceanography 24:1059–1064.
Law, K., S. Moret-Ferguson, N. Maximenko, G. Proskurowski, E.
Peacock, J. Hafner, and C. Reddy. 2010. Plastic Accumulation in the
North Atlantic Subtopical Gyre. Science Express. 19 August 2010 issue.
Mio, S.I., S. Takehama, and S. Matsumura. 1990. Distribution and
density of floating objects in the North Pacific based on 1987 sighting
survey. In: R.S. Shomura and M.L. Godfrey, Editors, Proceedings of the
Second International Conference on Marine Debris2–7 April, 1989, US
Dept. Commer., NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS, NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-154, pp.
212–246 Honolulu, Hawaii.
Morishige, C., M. Donohue, E. Flint, C. Swenson, and C. Woolaway.
2007. Factors affecting marine debris deposition at French Frigate
Shoals, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument,
1990-2002. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54: 1162-1169.
Pichel, W., J. Churnside, T. Veenstra, D. Foley, K. Friedman, R.
Brainard, J. Nicoll, Q. Zheng, and P. Clemente-Colon. 2007. Marine
debris collects within the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone.
Marine Pollution Bulletin 54: 1207-1211.