What is the issue?
Marine debris otherwise known as marine trash, is any human-made solid material that is disposed of or abandoned on beaches, in waterways that lead to the ocean, or in the ocean itself, regardless of whether disposal occurred directly, indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally. Dead seaweed, shells, carcasses or other naturally-produced materials are not included. Marine debris includes plastics, paper, wood, metal and other manufactured materials and is found on beaches worldwide as well as many depths of the ocean. A collection of marine debris can create enormous trash vortexes that spin. These areas of spinning debris are linked to convergence zones. These convergence zones are where warm water meets up with cooler. The zone acts like a highway that moves debris from one garbage patch to another. The largest Garbage Patch is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. An ocean gyre is a system of circular ocean currents formed by the Earth’s wind patterns and the forces created by the rotation of the planet. The circular motion created of the gyre draws debris into this stable center, where it becomes trapped. “A plastic water bottle discarded off the coast of California, for instance, takes the California Current south toward Mexico. There, it may catch the North Equatorial Current, which crosses the vast Pacific. Near the coast of Japan, the bottle may travel north on the powerful Kuroshiro Current. Finally, the bottle travels westward on the North Pacific Current. The gently rolling vortexes of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches gradually draw in the bottle.(National Geographics)”