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Mar 26, 08
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The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan
Old story, but I just came across it today. Shocking.
A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said. The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan. Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States." Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added. The "soup" is actually two linked areas, either side of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land. Mr Moore, a former sailor, came across the sea of waste by chance in 1997, while taking a short cut home from a Los Angeles to Hawaii yacht race. He had steered his craft into the "North Pacific gyre" – a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of little wind and extreme high pressure systems. Usually sailors avoid it. He was astonished to find himself surrounded by rubbish, day after day, thousands of miles from land. "Every time I came on deck, there was trash floating by," he said in an interview. "How could we have fouled such a huge area? How could this go on for a week?" Mr Moore, the heir to a family fortune from the oil industry, subsequently sold his business interests and became an environmental activist. He warned yesterday that unless consumers cut back on their use of disposable plastics, the plastic stew would double in size over the next decade. Professor David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, said more research was needed to establish the size and nature of the plastic soup but that there was "no reason to doubt" Algalita's findings. "After all, the plastic trash is going somewhere and it is about time we get a full accounting of the distribution of plastic in the marine ecosystem and especially its fate and impact on marine ecosystems." Professor Karl is co-ordinating an expedition with Algalita in search of the garbage patch later this year and believes the expanse of junk actually represents a new habitat. Historically, rubbish that ends up in oceanic gyres has biodegraded. But modern plastics are so durable that objects half-a-century old have been found in the north Pacific dump. "Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere," said Tony Andrady, a chemist with the US-based Research Triangle Institute. Mr Moore said that because the sea of rubbish is translucent and lies just below the water's surface, it is not detectable in satellite photographs. "You only see it from the bows of ships," he said. According to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food. Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic, Dr Eriksen said the slowly rotating mass of rubbish-laden water poses a risk to human health, too. Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets, or nurdles – the raw materials for the plastic industry – are lost or spilled every year, working their way into the sea. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. They then enter the food chain. "What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple," said Dr Eriksen. story @ The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan - Environment - Independent.co.uk 
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Mar 26, 08
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Vice Magazine - OH, THIS IS GREAT - PART 1 - Humans Have Finally Ruined the Ocean - by Thomas Morton
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Mar 26, 08
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I know where I'll be heading when we hit waterworld.
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Mar 26, 08
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great post....fascinating read.
im sure the majority of us can think back to taking flights over the waters of the pacific. the sight of that odd looking,severly polluted water and air as your flying miles high on a clear day lookin down at the earth. its a little overwhelming. i was shocked at flying over vancouver island,marveling at the beauty of the forrests and the resulting SHOCK when i saw the awful scars left by clear cut loggin. poor earth. I tend to favor the Gaia hypothesis Gaia hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .Take the sunami that hit in 2005. The waters above the undersea earthquake are some of the most polluted in the world in the most polluted region on earth. Seems to me that Gaia was just trying to flush out a sickness like a human trying to caugh up pleghm.... it is nice too see a collective shift in our outlook at all this. 10 years ago no one really cared about 'going green' as much as they do now...wich is fantastic. i just hope its not too late.
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Mar 26, 08
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So disgusting and depressing. And I don't mean disgusting in an "ew gross" kind of way, it's more like "I'm on a downward spiral towards completely losing my faith in humanity" kind of way.
On a much lighter note, I want one of these: ZENN Motor Company
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Mar 27, 08
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 Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.  Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds. please please please check your plastics (including bags!) for recycling codes. ANY plastic marked with a 1, 2, 4 or 5 can be recycled!!! codes 3 (vinyl) 5 (styrene/styrofoam) and 7 (other) CAN NOT be recycled. "biodegradable" bags are usually made from bioplastics and can only be commercially composted. i'm still trying to figure out what to do with these myself... avoid plastic (fuck plastic bags, ok!), excess packaging and unsustainable materials as much as you can. also remember, recycling is only worthwhile when we buy recycled products!
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Mar 27, 08
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Awesome post Nicole. This article really brought home a sad sad realization of just how dependant we are on plastics... after reading that and knowing what we know about plastic do you still want to drink out of a plastic bottle, use a plastic bag, toss out that cd/dvd, trash that bubble wrap, dispose of your precious starbucks cup lid, or eat out of styrofoam? where to the whales, dolphins, and other aquatic ocean life go? suffocated. well, who the hell's going to clean this up now. al gore?
Honestly, I'm glad it's 'cool' and 'chic' to love the enrivironment these days! And I'm really hoping that someone out there will soon invent a biodegradable and cost effective alternative to plastic that gets put into circulation soon!
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Mar 27, 08
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i think the truly saddening thing is that the general population, including those with the power to regulate the use of plastic, share your perception.
it's absolutely horrific that styrofoam is still in use/production when it's just wrong on so many levels. there is no need for it WHAT SO EVER in food packaging/containers and should be BANNED by policy. it's been a proven neurotoxin and we've known it leaches into our food since the 70s. you can see the weight reduction and "melting" of styrene containers after you finish consuming a hot bowl of wontons with your bare eyes. even mc donald's, a corporation which does not give a damn about your health, stopped subjecting us to styrene in the 80s. do i even need to mention CFC's and how the ozone depletion is related to warming? srsly. wtf, right? there are all kinds of food containers that are so biodegradable they will compost in your backyard a month or two.  behold in this and all industries, the reason people don't make the changes is because it costs more and they don't have to. the consumer doesn't demand it, nor does the government. yes, we all have the choice to bring our own container/bowl/plate and cutlery, but it would be so much better if systems and programs were in place to make it more convenient and accepted. it shouldn't be hip or trendy, it should be standard. i could go on about this forever. there are alternatives to pretty much all of the contributors to the climate crisis and it is only the economic and political systems failing to adapt or let go in sake of the environment which will continue to lead the planet in the wrong direction. don't give up hope. stand up for change. don't think that your efforts don't make a difference. it's overwhelming but if we work at it, it will work for us.
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Mar 27, 08
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Mar 27, 08
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Quote:
The doc "Who Killed the Electric Car?" offers insight into the bizzare relationship (or lack of a relationship) corporations have with priorities, foresight and plain old common sense. If we keep trusting corporations and the world of finance to steer the ship, we're going to end up floating in a sea of plastic. It has to come from government, and the mandate has to come from the people. Maybe not all the people, but at least the smart ones. What concerns me is something myra mentioned a couple of posts up, about how she's happy environmentalism has become trendy. Hard to look at that as anything but a postive, however David Suzuki's article in Westender a few weeks ago noted that trends are notorious for coming and going.. We need to find a way to make this stick. Don't just make these government policies, WRITE THEM INTO THE GODDAMN CONSTITUTION! That is all :)
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Mar 27, 08
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clearly i didn't make myself clear.
i 100% agree that recycling is bullshit. i don't have time to check out the link now but already know: it takes up huge amounts of energy to collect and recycle materials. plastic, paper, metals, even glass are not recycled, but what's now commonly known as "down-cycled." recycled materials don't have the same properties as virgin materials and people usually spec virgin materials for production means. that's why it's so important to REDUCE AND RE-USE. consider the three r's come in order of importance, k. when already stuck with the plastic, and given the choice between a landfill, an ocean or a recycling plant, where do you want it to send it?
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Mar 27, 08
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I agree 100% Dave, but you have to take a positive sometimes and just be positive about it.
You can call it a trend, but in reality I think it's something people have come to fully realize because the world is becoming a pretty fucked up place and it's done a lot of fucked up things lately. I feel that in some way, it's a shift in consciousness where we realize we've had some awful habits and the world is suffering as a result. It is positive that a lot of alternatives are becoming more easily accessed by a larger group of people. It's different when people really understand why they are choosing the to be that way. yess, they should change the constitution....now who is going to change alberta's mind?
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Mar 27, 08
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Mar 27, 08
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Mar 27, 08
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This garbage island has contaminated much of the sea life out there, if it's not organically farm raised, it's got its' dose of heavy metals, and plastic particles.
Much of the health concerns have already been raised so I won't echo them. The bullshit episodes is pretty on the money. Speaking of money, the world would be better off if they took that excess 8 billion or so, and made a really really really big catapult or rocket and launched all that shit into the sun. No really though, I think something this monumental could only be tackled under the banner of religion...it has to be a priority for many people to turn things around, so yeah, new religion time.
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Mar 28, 08
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seriously...the universe is a HUGE,BEYOND THE HUMAN SCOPE OF CAPACITY, vastness of space and time. Why havent they loaded all this CRAP on a huge capacity payload rocket and launch all this crap too the sun or, THE HUGE FUCKING GIGANTIC VASTNESS of space???? really...tell me.
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