Great Pacific Garbage Patch- Gyres of Trash

Until late last year, I had never heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I was quite surprised by my complete ignorance... so lets hope in the near future that more people become aware of this huge environmental issue so we can do more about it!

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is commonly described as comprising of two huge underwater sub-continents made up of plastic trash.... However this description makes it sound like one huge solid mass, in fact it is more like galaxy of trash- made up billions of smaller trash islands that may be hidden underwater and spread out over many hundreds of miles. Basically it is an ecological disaster of epic proportions swirling around the ocean between Hawaii and California - its total mass estimated as twice the size of Texas!

This underwater mass of trash has been created by many decades of trash getting caught up in the strong currents of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre and converging in the middle of the Pacific. There are 5 major ocean-wide gyres recognised: in the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Indian Ocean. The North Pacific gyre is the largest, but despite it's size and density, it is not visible via satellite or indeed from the air- as it swirls around in the upper water column.



The North Pacific garbage gyre was discovered by Charles J Moore after completing a sailing race in 1997, when he came across miles and miles of floating debris. Since then he has founded the Algalita Marine Research Founation and attempted to inform the world about this detrimental environmental catastrophe of the Pacific Ocean.

What is more scary is that it may not be the visible bottles, plastic bags, razors, bottle tops, plastic toys etc..... that are the ultimate concern. Due to photodegradation, this plastic is breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. As it disintegrates it becomes small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisims- hence entering the food chain.



Moore has discovered that the amount of plastic in the central Pacific Ocean outweighs zooplankton (small marine life such as plankton, crustaceans and tiny fish) at a ratio of 6-1! Surely plastic is not a good thing to ingest for fish, birds or jellyfish...... but these tiny floating beads of plastic are approximately the same size and shape as plankton. Jellyfish eat plankton (in this case plastic plankton), birds eat jellyfish.... I think you see the severity of the problem.

Furthermore, the plastic that does decompose in the ocean leaches off toxicchemicals.... poisoning the ocean further.....

Every year we dispose of more than 200 billion tonnes of plastic, of which 10% ends up in our oceans (Greenpeace). The United Nations Environment Program estimated that in every square mile of ocean, there is roughly 46,000 pieces of floating plastic (UN Environment Program). We consume and we throw away. In the future the cost of this carelessness to our oceans and our land, is just unfathomable......

So please take care, use as little plastic as possible, reuse it when you can and avoid products that package in unnecessary plastic - rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle. Ultimately the responsibility is up to us as a global community- perhaps start by boycotting bottled water.... so we can keep this little guy safe! :)



Written by Briony