Canada and the World

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31 December 2010

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Garbage Island in the Pacific

 

An enormous raft of waste material, estimated

to cover an area the size of Texas,

is floating in the North Pacific Ocean

 

An area known as the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone has become home to a huge bobbing debris field. Ocean currents swirl everything from plastic water bottles, disposable diapers, and discarded fishing gear into one floating island of trash.

 

Sometimes called the “Plastic Vortex” or the “Garbage Patch” this area of polluted ocean is about 1,600 kilometres west of the coast of California. The image shows a tiny sample of what’s floating around.

 

An article published by National Geographic News (July 2009) says that, “As much as 10 percent of the 260 million tonnes of plastic produced annually ends up in the oceans, much of it in trash vortices like the Pacific garbage patch.”

 

Plastic Waste Travels the Globe

Not much is known about the mass of trash so scientists have set sail to conduct research on it. The expedition, named Project Kaisei, is aiming to study how the garbage affects marine life.

 

According to BBC News (August 4, 2009), “Ultimately the organizers hope to clear the plastic and recycle it for use as fuel and new products.”

 

Unfortunately, a lot of the plastic breaks down into smaller pieces because of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. These tiny pieces may not be recoverable.

 

Project co-founder Mary Crowley told the San Jose Mercury News: “This is a problem that is kind of out of sight, out of mind, but it is having devastating impacts on the ocean. I felt we needed to do something about it.”

 

Origins of Pacific Waste

Pretty much anything that is left behind on a beach is going to be captured by tides and taken out to sea. This includes shopping bags, broken air mattresses, cigarette butts, plastic umbrellas, etc. In addition, a lot of trash is discharged overboard from merchant ships and fishing boats sometimes cut snagged nets loose where they drift for years killing sea turtles and other ocean life.

 

 

Paul Rogers, writing in the San Jose Mercury News, reports on other sources: “Scientists believe trash - most of it plastic that won’t decompose - washes down storm drains and rivers from places like the (San Francisco) Bay Area or Japan, eventually drifting into several large ocean vortices where currents swirl like water in a drain.”

 

Goals of Project Kaisei

Scientists on two sailing ships will study the garbage raft for a month. The Kaisei (the ship’s name means “Ocean Planet” in Japanese) and the New Horizon from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography left in early August 2009.

 

According to the Project Kaisei team its members will:

 

• “Study and document the marine debris found in this area of the Pacific Ocean;
• “Test catch methods for removing the debris;
• “Conduct research on the chemical interactions of marine debris…and select fishes and wildlife related to persistent organic pollutants (POPs);
• “Understand the needs required to undertake an eventual large scale clean-up of the waste material; and,
• “Test technologies for conversion into an economically viable by-product: diesel fuel.”

 

Ultimately, the solution to the problem is to keep the waste material from getting into the ocean in the first place. Programs banning plastic shopping bags and drinks bottles are making a start, but a massive public education program will be needed to get people to stop discarding plastic goods.

 

Image Credits

Project Kasei

 

Sources

“Giant Ocean-trash Vortex Attracts Explorers.” Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News, July 31, 2009.

“Voyage to Study Plastic Island.” Judith Burns, BBC News, August 4, 2009.

“Researchers Set Sail for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News, September 1, 2009.

“Ocean Garbage Patches are not Growing, so where is all that Plastic Going?” Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American, August 20, 2010.

 

 

© Canada and the World, December 2010

All rights reserved

 

 Suzanne Canja

 

“Although the Laysan albatross (above) chicks of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge live in the central Pacific, more than 1,000 miles from human civilization, their stomachs look like miniature garbage dumps, full of bottle caps, toothbrushes, cigarette lighters — even golf balls.”

 

Discover Magazine

July/August 2010

NOT JUST THE PACIFIC

 

There are large patches of floating garbage in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. A report in Scientific American says that “Although the mysteries surrounding exactly how the plastic gets to these locations, where it comes from, and what impact it’s having on marine life remain unanswered, a team of scientists has now published perhaps the most analytical study of the patches to date based on data collected by [nets attached to] research vessels over a 22-year period, between 1986 and 2008.”

 

The researchers have found that although society is producing and throwing away much more garbage than it was a quarter century ago the islands of trash in the oceans are not getting any bigger.

 

The article suggests three possible reasons for this: “The plastic there may break up into pieces too small to be collected by the nets, or it might be sinking beneath the surface. Or, it might be consumed by marine organisms.”

 

Ocean Garbage