As I prepare for my voyage to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch I get lots of questions from people wondering what it is and how it might impact them. To start, I wanted to blog some of the most frequently asked questions about the Garbage Patch.
The LA River filled with plastic that could end up in the ocean. Photo by kqedquest
To say it’s a floating “mound” of garbage is a bit misleading. The pieces of trash are distributed throughout the water column so there isn’t actually a garbage island you could walk on. Some pieces float, some sink; think about what a swimming pool would look like if you emptied your trash into.
There's a great article answering this question more fully written by Danny Sullivan with comments from Google Ocean product manager Steve Miller.
Almost anything you can imagine—plastic coat hangers, volleyballs, water bottles, hard hats, rubber duckies, plastic lawn chairs, oil drums, plastic bottles, shoes…Most of the material is plastic and many marine animals mistake small fragments for food and are unable to process the indigestible plastic.
Very few people/organizations are intentionally dumping material into the Pacific Ocean. Most of it (around 80%) comes from land-based sources. That means if you throw a bottle on the sidewalk and it goes into a storm drain it will likely end up in the Garbage Patch if that storm drain empties into the sea.
It’s kept in one place by a large swirling current called a gyre. A gyre is an area of heavy currents and slack winds, much like a whirlpool in a bathtub. This Garbage Patch (there are others scattered throughout the seven other gyres) is located in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. When trash gets washed down storm drains most material will eventually make its way to the Garbage Patch.
Most scientists believe it is impossible to clean up. It’s over twice the size of Texas—and that’s just the area researchers have studied, it could be much larger.
-Reduce the amount of plastic you use
-Avoid single use items (coffee cups, straws etc…)
-Write a letter to plastic manufacturing companies urging them to invest in biodegradable packaging
-Make sure outdoor trash cans aren’t overflowing—this is how garbage gets into storm drains
-Spread the word—once people realize the amount of debris we’re putting in our oceans it’s much easier to use less plastic
