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 The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "Trash
Vortex" consists of at least 20 years of accumulated
junk cast off by humans, 90 percent of it plastics. Only
20 percent comes from ships and oil platforms at sea; 80
percent comes from land.
Ocean currents carry debris from the
east coast of Asia to the center of the gyre in a year
or less, and debris from the west coast of North America
in about five years. A gyre is a ring or circle, or circular
course of motion. In oceanography, gyres are a ring-like
system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern
Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
The "patch" is actually two separate
accumulations connected by a 6,000 mile trash "umbilical
cord." The
Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch floats between Japan and Hawaii;
the Western Patch floats between Hawaii and California. The
North Pacific Gyre is a large oval stretching east-west from
Japan to California, with a clockwise spinning current. This
slow-moving current picks up trash and debris and deposits
it in the center of the gyre, where it remains relatively
stationary. Both patches do move around however, depending
on the prevailing current. The North Pacific Gyre is made
up of four different currents: the North Pacific Current
to the north; the California Current to the west; the North
Equatorial Current to the south; and the Kuroshio Current
to the east. This movement sometimes brings the Western Garbage
Patch within 500 nautical miles of the Californian coast,
and causes massive debris pile-ups on beaches in the Hawaiian
Islands.
Although each patch is estimated to be approximately the
size of Texas, some estimates indicate they may be closer
to the size of the continental U.S. Size estimates are difficult
because the patches are not densely-packed with solid debris;
they are more like dense concentrations of tiny pieces of
floating plastic, most of which is not on the surface. Like
an iceberg, most of the debris making up the patches are
below the surface, extending perhaps hundreds of feet, with
unknown quantities accumulated on the ocean floor.
"…in
essence humans are eating their own waste."
The North Pacific Gyre is one of five major oceanic gyres;
the others are in the South Pacific, the North Atlantic,
South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Since each behaves in
the same vortex style, scientists are certain that massive
conglomerates of trash like the North Pacific Garbage Patch
exist in each of the worlds oceans.
Plastic does not biodegrade, but it does
photo-degrade, breaking down into tiny pieces by exposure
to the sun. This "plastic
confetti" over time soaks up man-made toxins in the
ocean, including DDT, a pesticide that was banned in the
U.S. in the 1960's and labeled by the Environmental Protection
Agency in 1987 as a "probable human carcinogen." The
most recent review of all the evidence concludes that exposure
to DDT before puberty increases the risk of breast cancer
later in life.
Marine wildlife mistake the particles
for food and ingest them. Millions of birds have been found
dead, their guts full of plastic they can't digest, so
they die of starvation. Jellyfish and other small invertebrates
also ingest the "poison
stew," and these animals are then eaten by fish. No
country is even acknowledging the problem, let alone
doing anything about it. Some scientists say it is impossible
to clean up the mess now; it is simply too massive an undertaking,
and without support from any government, nothing can be done.
But, as environmentalists remind the world's population,
humans eat fish. We are eating fish that have eaten other
fish which have eaten toxin-saturated plastics. In essence,
humans are eating their own waste. Something must be done,
and the time is now.
"What goes into the ocean goes into
these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple."
Why is the world's biggest landfill in the Pacific Ocean?
The Worlds Largest Dump
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Message In A Bottle
Plastic Ocean
No More Plastic Bags
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