The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

MaybeLogic

Floating somewhere in the Pacific ocean is an island of plastic rubbish twice the size of Texas (to put that into perspective Texas is about 10 times the size of Ireland).

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/vast-and-growing-fast-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-1282083.html

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said. The vast expanse of debris - in effect the world's largest rubbish dump - is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.
Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."
Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.
The "soup" is actually two linked areas, either side of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one-fifth of the junk - which includes everything from footballs and Lego to carrier bags - is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.
Mr Moore, a former sailor, came across the sea of waste by chance in 1997, while taking a short cut home from a Los Angeles to Hawaii yacht race. He had steered his craft into the "North Pacific gyre" - a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of little wind and extreme high pressure systems. He was astonished to find himself surrounded by rubbish, day after day, thousands of miles from land. "Every time I came on deck, there was trash floating by," he said. "How could we have fouled such a huge area?"
Mr Moore, the heir to a family fortune from the oil industry, subsequently sold his business interests and became an environmental activist. He warned yesterday that unless consumers cut back on their use of disposable plastics, the stew would double in size over the next decade.
Professor David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, said more research was needed to establish the size and nature of the plastic soup but that there was "no reason to doubt" Algalita's findings.
"After all, the plastic trash is going somewhere and it is about time we get a full accounting of the distribution of plastic and especially its fate and impact on marine ecosystems."
Professor Karl is co-ordinating an expedition with Algalita in search of the garbage patch later this year and believes the expanse of junk actually represents a new habitat. Historically, rubbish that ends up in oceanic gyres has biodegraded. But modern plastics are so durable that objects half-a-century old have been found in the north Pacific dump. "Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere," said Tony Andrady, a chemist with the US-based Research Triangle Institute.
Mr Moore said that because the sea of rubbish is translucent and lies just below the water's surface, it is not detectable in satellite photographs.
According to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food.
Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.
Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets, or nurdles - the raw materials for the plastic industry - work their way into the sea every year. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals. They then enter the food chain. "What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate," said Dr Eriksen.
- Kathy Marks and Daniel Howden

That´s really messed up. We can be a very disgusting, shortsighted species at times.

biko

That's the problem with plastic, it doesn't go away.
It's easy to recycle though.

stovelid

They can hide it in Polynesia.

Nobody would notice an island called Polyethylene there?

AnonoBoy

See this is what happens when people don't clear their tables in Burger King. :mad:

The_Minister

Nitpick: Texas is a little over eight times the size of Ireland, not ten.

MaybeLogic

The_Minister wrote: »

Nitpick: Texas is a little over eight times the size of Ireland, not ten.

I forgot to include our brethern in the North. Sloppy googling.

The_Minister

MaybeLogic wrote: »

I forgot to include our brethern in the North. Sloppy googling.

Ah, grand stuff.

billymitchell

Looks like somebody in the indo was watching an old episode of QI on Dave over the weekend :rolleyes:

alwaysadub

Why would people want to walk on an island made of rubbish?

Be a cheap holiday i suppose :pac:

My name is URL

As many times as I've heard this story, I've never seen a pic of said plastic continent. Even the Wiki doesn't have a picture. Can't help but feel it's an exaggerated problem tbh

Anyway just let it grow and in time species of plastic eating octopi will evolve and solve our garbage disposal woes

WindSock

Send it into space, plenty of space up there.

MaybeLogic

A purported satellite image here.

neilthefunkeone

My name is URL wrote: »

As many times as I've heard this story, I've never seen a pic of said plastic continent. Even the Wiki doesn't have a picture. Can't help but feel it's an exaggerated problem tbh

Took me all morning but i may have found it...
http://www.mocpages.com/user_images/32172/12596834471_SPLASH.jpg

My name is URL wrote: »

Anyway just let it grow and in time species of plastic eating octopi will evolve and solve our garbage disposal woes

No octopi yet but the sharks are evolving beyond control!!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4OYGjUrdllo/SP6rzhG2itI/AAAAAAAAIyk/qIMGiR1D-_g/s400/legoshark.jpg

ScumLord

Surely that much plastic must be worth some money?

TPD

MaybeLogic wrote: »

A purported satellite image here.

Thats quite nice looking from a distance.

funk-you

Fock you whaaale...

-Funk

AnonoBoy

TPD wrote: »

Thats quite nice looking from a distance.

Can't resist urge to post Nanci Griffith video....... ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

tech77

"Trash vortex".
Great name for a band.

Jesus Wept

yea

pics/gtfo
etc

kryogen

we are just a disgusting species really

for instance, i just threw my plastic bottle out the car window while i am using boards on my mobile in the school district

pickarooney

MaybeLogic wrote: »

I forgot to include our brethern in the North. Sloppy googling.

The article says it's twice the size of the US (minus Alaska and Hawaii). Why all the talk of Texas?

MaybeLogic

pickarooney wrote: »

The article says it's twice the size of the US (minus Alaska and Hawaii). Why all the talk of Texas?

It must have grown since this morning.

longshanks

My name is URL wrote: »

As many times as I've heard this story, I've never seen a pic of said plastic continent. Even the Wiki doesn't have a picture. Can't help but feel it's an exaggerated problem tbh

Anyway just let it grow and in time species of plastic eating octopi will evolve and solve our garbage disposal woes

here you go squire

the keen edge

I wonder what volume of the garbage island is made up from used condoms and maxi pads. Maybe elements of it will combine with sea life and morph into some type of sea monster, ah the circle of life.

Panda

Its probably the biggest island of plastic but probably also not the only one.
Another part of the toxic series that vbs has made is toxic napoli, tis messed up.

btw vbs.tv is an excellent site and part of the vice family if you havent seen it before, choco of great content.

The_Minister

the keen edge wrote: »

I wonder what volume of the garbage island is made up from used condoms and maxi pads. Maybe elements of it will combine with sea life and morph into some type of sea monster, ah the circle of life.

I've never felt sorry for a fish until right this second.

MaybeLogic

pickarooney wrote: »

The article says it's twice the size of the US (minus Alaska and Hawaii). Why all the talk of Texas?

The online article and the article in the paper are different.
I didn´t read the online link when I posted it, tbh.

the keen edge

The_Minister wrote: »

I've never felt sorry for a fish until right this second.

Don't. Their not human and therefore do not have feelings or rights. Think of them as immigrants.:rolleyes:

Liam Byrne

So you could argue that a massive tsunami would be basically the ocean "throwing up" ?

How poetic-justice would that be ?

Thomas828

The Americans should clean it up since they're responsible for manufacturing much of it. They have the will and technology and the know-how to do something useful with it. Just think, they could recycle it to make tyres, cars, houses... They could build a whole new city out of the flotsam that way and help renew the environment at the same time!

the keen edge

Thomas828 wrote: »

The Americans should clean it up since they're responsible for manufacturing much of it. They have the will and technology and the know-how to do something useful with it.

I doubt it. Unless of course there is crude oil contained within it.

Thomas828 wrote: »

think, they could recycle it to make tyres, cars, houses... They could build a whole new city out of the flotsam that way and help renew the environment at the same time!

More cars and houses, why not, they could sell them at over inflated prices to people who can't afford them. Brilliant!:)

Worztron