The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is also known as the Pacific trash vortex. Its waters span from the West Coast of North America to Japan. The patch is made of the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, located between the U.S. states of Hawaii and California. Joined by the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, this convergence zone is where warm water from the South Pacific meets up with cooler water from the Arctic. The zone acts like a highway that moves debris from one patch to another. The entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch is bounded by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. 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. Most of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from land-based activities in North America and Asia. The remaining of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from boaters, offshore oil rigs, and large cargo ships that dump debris directly into the water. “Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which died of starvation or ruptured organs. Seals and other marine mammals are especially at risk. They can get entangled in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded more often because of their low cost.(National Geographic)”