Plastic Is Forever In The North Pacific Gyre

By now most of us have heard about the horrendous mountain of plastic swirling around in the North Pacific Gyre (aka the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or “The Horse Latitudes.” ) It’s an area in the Pacific Ocean that earlier generations of mariners avoided with good reason.  Topical weather, slow, swirling equatorial currents, and lack of wind made it a grave yard  for men and ships alike in the great age of sail.  These are the same characteristics that have turned it into a continent-sized floating landfill  today; a fact that has some frightening implications.

A plastic bottle thrown into a storm sewer in San Francisco will make its way to the North Pacific Gyre in about two weeks, and stay there for eternity.  Everything from Barbie doll parts to plastic pop tops and floating wisps of Saran Wrap swirl around in this ever widening vortex of human generated trash.  Plastic accounts for close to 90% of the material in the garbage patch. This is bad news, because plastic is forever.  It does not bio degrade like wood, paper, or even rock.

Plastic photo-degrades, which means it becomes brittle and begins to crack and get broken down  into smaller pieces, releasing dangerous toxins like PCB’s and DDT to be absorbed by the water and ingested by living creatures.  Eventually, millions of tiny poisonous plastic nodules wash up on beaches, sink to the bottom of the sea, or just float around on the surface of the water to be mistaken for food bybirds and fish.  You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that poisons ingested at the bottom of the food chain will eventually make their way to the top.

But there is hope. In 1997 after his own personal encounter with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Captain Charles Moore decided to dedicate 100 % of the time and resources of his Algalita Marine Research  Foundation to understanding and remediating the plastic load of the world’s oceans.  Since then, Moore has done a heroic job of raising worldwide public awareness, and has been the only one to conduct significant research on conditions in the gyre. Since the place is outside the territorial waters of any country, no nation has shown any interest in funding research or clean-up efforts.  In 2007-08  the  Algalita Foundation collected surface samples of plankton in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,and is currently analyzing them to get some actual information on just what is there .

The Algalita people are going back this summer to conduct more research. Seems like the most constructive thing any of us can do is to support this effort. Why not become a member or make a donation? Let’s do something about all this plastic garbage in the ocean  other than talk about it.