About The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Have you ever wondered where the trash that is washed off the coasts and transported by rivers and sewers from homes and businesses ends up? In the oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water, this debris is dumped, and after a while, it gathers in one spot to form a trash island. According to a research done in 2015, the oceans get roughly eight million tons of waste annually, the bulk of it being plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of trash that has accumulated in the Pacific Ocean. Because of the large size of trash that collects here, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been given descriptions such as a trash island the size of Texas, the size of France and some say it is like a continent. However, according to Holly Bamford, the former director of United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) a program set to research on marine debris. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an extensive collection of garbage made up of thousands of small waste islands that may be floating on the water, concealed under the ocean water or dispersed over many kilometers in the water (McClendon, 2016).

According to National Geographic Society, micro-plastics which cause the water look like a cloudy soup make up the greatest portion of the garbage in this patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is found in the North Pacific Ocean and stretches from the West Coast of North America to Japan. On the west, off the coastline of Asia, the patch is known as the Western Garbage Patch, and on the east between California and Hawaii, referred to as the Eastern Garbage Patch. Between this two patches, Western and Eastern Patches is the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone. In this zone, a few kilometers off the shore of Hawaii, cool ocean water coming from the Arctic mixes with the warmer ocean water coming from the South Pacific. This convergence zone is also a highway for the debris when they reach this zone, and the debris is moved along an east-west corridor into the Eastern and Western Patches (Caryl-Sue, & National Geographic Society, 2014).

History of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The discoverer of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is Captain Charles Moore and his crew. They were coming from a yacht competition in Hawaii to California crossing through a shortcut in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. This gyre is a region bordering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A gyre is a combination of large-scale ocean currents caused by wind patterns and forces due to the earth’s rotation. In this zone, the North Pacific currents, the California, and the North Equatorial Kuroshio meet. The currents move in a circular motion and at the center of these currents is a region that is calm and unwavering. As the gyre moves in a circular motion, garbage is drawn into the center and gets trapped (Caryl-Sue, & National Geographic Society, 2014).

Where does this garbage come from? According to the United Nations, 80 percent of this debris come from land especially from North America and Asia, and 10 percent come from floating fishing nets. The other debris comes from recreational boats and cargo ships that throw garbage or lose cargo directly into the water when they are caught up in storms. For debris to reach the garbage patch, according to Moore, garbage from Asia may take a year to arrive at the Eastern Garbage Patch and six or more years for waste to reach the patch from the United States (McClendon, 2016).

1n 1990, a cargo ship carrying boots and sneakers lost five containers in a storm. Two years later, another cargo ship lost thousands of toys in the Pacific. The cargo lost by these ships is still floating at the Great Pacific Patch. Garbage from the land, for instance, the coastline of Northern California gets blown into the California current and is moved towards Mexico. The garbage then finds its way into the North Equatorial current which crosses the Pacific Ocean and is carried towards the coast of Japan where it meets the Kuroshio Current. The current then carries the garbage towards the east. The trash reaches the North Pacific current where the Eastern and Western garbage patch picks the trash and deposit it to the North Pacific Garbage Patch where it gets disposed of (Caryl-Sue, & National Geographic Society, 2014).

The garbage patch is made up of metals, glasses, rubbers and plastics such as plastic bags, plastic water bottles, and bottle caps. The plastics are the major debris. One reason why plastics are the major debris is that plastics do not sink and are not biodegradable, unlike other garbage. Plastics do not wear out but instead, they are reduced by the sun into smaller pieces, and this has made things at the Great Pacific Oceanic Patch become worse. Another reason why plastic is the main debris in this patch is, plastics are cheap and flexible and therefore used more than other materials in the world. After been used, they are carried by rivers and sewers then dumped into water bodies. The garbage will then collect in different patches in the Indian, Pacific, Atlantic oceans and other small water bodies. Some of the trash will sink into the water, but the floating garbage such as plastics will be break into smaller pieces called microplastics. This process of breaking down plastics into microplastics by the sun is called photo-degradation.

This garbage has a lot of effects. Plastics become microscopic as they degrade due to photo-degradation, these microscopic plastics are eaten by tiny marine organisms, and they become harmful to marine life. Marine life such as sea turtles and Albatrosses die due to starvation or ruptured body organs after taking this debris mistaking them for food. Albatross go deep into the ocean looking for food such as fish eggs. Small plastics look similar to fish eggs, and these birds eat the plastics along with other indigestible materials.

The garbage including micro-plastics and other trash float on water and block sunlight from entering the ocean water. Planktons and algae underwater will not receive the sunlight. According to Charles Moore, the founder of Algalita Marine Research Foundation, research has shown that microplastics outweigh surface planktons by a factor of six to one (Kostigen, 2008). These planktons and algae are the primary manufacturers of food in the oceanic food web, and therefore the food web in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is destroyed. With the extinction of the primary food producers, the entire marine food web changes. Marine life such as whales and sharks would reduce in number since the food they depend on will have reduced which subsequently lead to seafood becoming less available and expensive for human beings.

This plastic debris also causes an environmental pollution and health problems. As the plastics degrade, they release chemicals such as bisphenol-A and colorants into the immediate environment. These chemicals and colorants have been shown to cause environmental and health problems. Also, plastics absorb pollutants such as Polychlorinated Biphenyls and pesticides like Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane from the marine water. When marine life consumes these plastics, the chemicals in them accumulate in the tissues of marine organisms, and they enter into the food web and pose health problems.

There is an increasing use of plastic fishing nets such as bottom-set gill nets due to these plastics been cheap and durable. Some nets are abandoned, and others get lost when fishing and they trap these animals and even drown them. Floating fishing nets collect in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and pose a danger to dolphins, sea turtles, seals and other marine animals, and their population becomes highly threatened.

Resolutions to end the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

With the serious problems caused by the garbage in the ocean, we must find solutions to this problem. According to Captain Charles Moore, the discoverer of the Pacific Garbage Patch, the way out is to stop new plastics from going into the ocean either by water flow or by humans. He says that it is almost impossible to try to clean the garbage already collected in the oceans. We, therefore, have to change our lifestyles. Otherwise, the trash will continue to collect on the oceans and cause more havoc.

Another explorer for the National Geographic, Alexandra Cousteau, has a suggestion that public awareness and education will help preserve the oceans (Kostigen, 2008). We can do this awareness and teaching through the media. People education about the importance of protecting the water resources such as oceans. Alexandra further says that everybody is linked to the oceans since water is life and therefore pollution is unacceptable.

As a prevention measure, scientists and explorers agree that we should start to recycle plastics and advocate for a wider use of degradable materials instead of this plastics. It would at least help solve this plastic problem in the oceans, especially in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Countries and organizations should support both manufacturers and individuals who are moving away from using plastics to biodegradable materials.

Conclusion

According to research done by trash collecting voyage, the amount of trash in the ocean water is shocking and we need to take actions as other garbage patches are collecting in the Atlantic, Indian Oceans, and other small water bodies have patches similar to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. No single country would be ready to finance the cleanup process since the patch is far off from any country’s coastline. Therefore every country should make efforts to stop disposing of garbage into the water bodies. Many foundations such as National Geographic Emerging Explorer make efforts to create awareness on the recycling of plastics. Explorers for the foundation such as David de Rothschild have helped create public awareness, David created Plastiki, a large catamaran made of plastics (Caryl-Sue, & National Geographic Society, 2014). The Plastiki moved through countries such as San Francisco, Sydney, Australia and California to create awareness on plastic use and recycling.











































References

Caryl-Sue, & National Geographic Society. (2014, September 19). Great Pacific Garbage Patch – National Geographic Society. Retrieved from http://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

Kostigen, T. M. (2008, July 10). The World's Largest Dump: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch | DiscoverMagazine.com. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump

McClendon, R. (2016, October 5). What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch? | MNN - Mother Nature Network. Retrieved from http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch





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