The average American drinks from about 168 plastic water bottles every year (Claudio). Now the question is where all those bottles end up. Of course, many people will recycle their plastic, or even reuse it, but most of these non-biodegradable bottles and other plastics will wind up in undesirable places, places like the ocean.
What is the great pacific garbage patch?
The Pacific Garbage Patch is an oceanic desert that exists in the North Pacific Subtropical
Gyre. The North Pacific Subtropical
Gyre is the largest ecosystem on
earth and is a system consisting of
many different cycles that move
in clockwise spiral currents.The
garbage patch is not just one
patch, it is many different pa-
tches that were formed in the
Pacific gyre. They are very calm
due to the lack of fish and the
plethora of trash in the area (Silverman 1).
The cycles canbe found mostly in the Pacific Ocean, but small patches of trash can be found in other oceans as well.
How Big Are They?
These patches are not just little pond-sized islands of trash. They are immense and take up an unimaginable space of the ocean. Approximately 75,000 bits of plastic populate a single square kilometer in these hundred-foot long landfills; this is the same size as 200 football fields aligned next to each other (“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”). The overwhelming amount of garbage continues to swell because the trash can not escape from the calm currents. The trash cannot escape because the circular motions of the gyre draws in debris and that debris makes its way to the center of the cycle. The debris remains in the center, trapped, and builds up there (“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”).
When Did They Form?
Although it is hard to tell when these trash vortexes were formed, they were discovered by a man named Charles Moore in 1997 while he was competing in the Transpacific Yacht Race (Kostigen1). Once discovered, the patches began to undergo much investigation, and scientists
are still trying to figure out how this
trashy dilemma will be resolved.
What Does Plastic Have Do with
Anyting
Plastics, one of the many
materials that make up the
garbage patches, take almost
one thousand years to degrade.
Although there are are other
substances of trash that make up
the garbage patches, plastic is
most evident. Plastic can take
different forms such as bags, bottles
or containers. These plastics release
hydrophobic pollutants, such
as BPA, which can destroy animals’ reproductive system (Claudio). Also, when animals accidentally swallow the plastic, the plastic can block their immune system disabling their ability to dive into the water for food because of their lack of strength (Claudio). Such an immense amount of plastic does not decompose, so the large patch of plastic remains on the oceans, causing the same problems, for years.
Where Do Most Plastics Come From?
These plastics come from people. Everyone is to blame when it comes to the garbage patches. A littered plastic cup or container could easily get blown into the seas, get caught up in a current and get swirled up into the mixture of many currents of the ocean. Rivers also lead to the ocean, so trash that ends up in a stream in the middle of the United States could end up in the ocean, get carried along the ocean’s current and land in a trash vortex.
Most plastics end up just taking up space, suspended in the waters for centuries. Plastics do not easily wear down because their bonds are generally non-polar. Because plastics don’t usually fully decompose, they only break only into tinier and tinier pieces called microplastics. Microplastics are so microscopic that they can not be seen by the naked eye. While some patches are constructed of large pieces of garbage lurking on the ocean’s surface, many patches are more like plastic soup. Even though it is easier to disregard the trash that can not be seen, it is everywhere. These materials take up almost 90 percent of all trash in the waters and outweigh the amount of plankton by a ratio of six to one (Silverman 1). Every second, 1500 bottles of plastic appear in our oceans (Claudio). It is almost impossible to clean out the microplastics because they take up a massive amount of space in the ocean. Plastic is everywhere. Heavy trash sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, microplastics suspend on the surface of the water and when near land, the ocean’s waves wash the trash onto our beach shores.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch:
A Floating Landfill Path
By: Judy Kim
8
Child playing in trash filled
waters