Plastic Soup in the Pacific Ocean
Sea of Trash Spans Area Twice the Size of Continental United States
Jul 29, 2008
All of the plastic in the world has to go somewhere, and unfortunately a lot of it has been eventually making it to the ocean.
According to scientists researching this trash vortex, there is now an estimated 100 million tons of plastic trash swirling around in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean alone. This “plastic soup” is now estimated to cover an area that is twice the size of the continental United States.
The Discovery of Plastic Soup by Captain Moore
This huge area of trash in the Pacific Ocean was actually discovered accidentally by Captain Charles Moore, who was taking a shortcut home after completing a yacht race from Los Angeles to Hawaii.
According to Captain Moore’s biography, he veered from the usual sea route and saw an ocean he had never known, "there were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic.”
Since then, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Captain Moore founded, has been working tirelessly to learn more about these plastic dumps in the middle of the oceans.
How Plastic Soup has been Created by Us
Though about 20% of the plastic trash comes from ocean sources, the remaining 80% of the trash comes from sources on land such as households, businesses, and factories.
It is human nature to want to get rid of trash as quickly as possible. If there isn’t a trash can nearby, many people will eventually drop the piece of trash.
Even trash that we think we are throwing away can still be lost do to improper handling, or blow away on the way to the landfill. This trash eventually makes it to the ocean via wind or by being washed into a storm drain.
Once in the ocean, circular currents bring the trash to the center of these gyres where it gets trapped in an area of low winds and currents.
Why this Plastic Soup is so Dangerous
Plastic is a synthetic material that is not biodegradable, and cannot be digested by any living thing. The plastic in the ocean can only photodegrade, which means it is broken into smaller pieces by the sun’s rays, but it never goes away.
This means that the plastic eventually becomes a plastic dust which mixes with the ocean, and now outnumbers zooplankton, the natural food, 6 to 1 in the North Pacific Central Gyre.
This plastic is mistaken for food by marine animals, and will make them feel full even though they gain no nutrients from the plastic and their bodies cannot digest it. The plastic can also block their digestive track, leading to starvation.
All of the toxins entering the food cycle through plastic are a danger for human life as well, because a lot of our diet comes from the sea.
What Can be Done to Stop the Plastic Soup from Getting Bigger
To stop the plastic soup from getting any larger, people have to change the way they think about plastic.
- Use canvas or recycled bags at the grocery store, politely refuse plastic bags.
- Sweep the sidewalk instead of hosing it.
- Use consumable items in metal, glass, or paper packaging instead of plastic.
- Ask the community to install screens over storm drains, and help keep them clean.
Unfortunately, tiny plastic dust cannot be cleaned out of the oceans. Remember that hope for the future of the oceans lies in the way people conduct their everyday lives.
References:
Algalita Marine Research Foundation
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