Pacific Garbage Patch
Published on Nov 21, 2015
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
By Rosie Newman
In the middle of the pacific ocean
is a patch of over 260,000 tonnes of rubbish
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a giant patch of rubbish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and North America. There is over 260,000 tonnes of plastic, and in some places there's so much rubbish that you could walk on it.
Created by US
We are the ones that created the Garbage Patch. 80% of the rubbish in the Garbage Patch comes off the land in North America and Asia.
Littering
While some of the rubbish gets blown off of landfills along coasts, most of the rubbish reaches the patch when people litter. The rubbish goes through storm pipe drains, until it gets to the sea. The rubbish gets caught in currents and then slowly moves, until it gets stuck in the middle and creates a patch. Or what some people call a 'plastic soup'.
Dumping in the sea
The disposal of plastic into the sea is actually prohibited by the 'International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships', but ships must still be dumping rubbish in the sea, because around 20% of the rubbish in the garbage patch are things from cargo ships, fishing boats and oil rigs.
The problem
is that 70% of the rubbish is plastic
The problem with the garbage patch is that 70% of it is plastic. Plastic is used for so many things these days: bottles, cups, bags, cutlery, most of which can't be or aren't recycled.
THE PLASTIC BREAKS down
into smaller pieces called microplastics
Plastic isn't biodegradable and in the sea it just gets broken down by the sun and waves into tiny pieces called microplastics. Some pieces are less than one millimetre in size.
this is the effect
The Pacific Garbage Patch is having a devastating effect on our Earth's animals. They swallow the microplastic, get caught in the rubbish or mistake the plastic for their food. The plastic, once in the body, poisons and then kills them.
Over 1 million seabirds and 100,00 sea animals are dying each year from plastic.
Over 1 million seabirds and 100,00 sea animals are dying each year. 86% of sea turtle species in the world have been found to have ingested plastic. A study on the coasts of Britain found that 95% of one species of bird were found with plastic in their stomachs.
But it could affect us too
Plastic is getting into the food chain. If small animals ingest plastic, then bigger animals eat them, and then we eat the big animals, we could be eating plastic too.
AND TOURISM for small islands
tHE RUBBISH IS ALSO RUINING OUR BEACHES
The plastic is not only killing our animals. It is also ruining our beaches. Rubbish washes up onto the beaches, covering the sand with garbage. Kamilo Beach in Hawaii is an example of this, and has been nicknamed 'Plastic Beach' after its polluted shores. This is slowing down tourism for many islands, as their beautiful beaches are being destroyed.
So how do we stop this?
So what can we do to stop this?
There is too much plastic
to clean up
People have thought of collecting the rubbish in nets, but there's just too much of it and lots of the plastic is too small for this to be effective. Small sea animals may get caught in nets as well. It is estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up only 1 percent of the rubbish in the North Pacific Ocean.
responsibility
and no one wants to take
Another reason that the great pacific garbage patch won't ever be fully cleaned up is because no country will take responsibility for it. The patch is in the middle of the ocean and is therefore near multiple countries, each of whom probably think it is another country's job. Thankfully though, there are people and organisations working to keep the patch from growing.
Captain Charles moore believes
our ocean will forever be a 'plastic ocean'
Captain Charles Moore, the man who found the Pacific Garbage Patch, said "No matter where you are, there's no getting over it, no getting away from it. It's a plastic ocean now."
The only things we can do are:
- Participate in beach clean-ups
- Recycle plastic
- Reduce the amount of plastic packaging we use
The only things left for us to do are: get involved with beach clean ups to stop rubbish getting into our oceans, recycle as much plastic as we can, to avoid it getting in landfill or the sea and get companies to reduce the amount of disposable packaging on their products or to change it to recyclable or biodegradable packaging.
our world
is being ruined by us
The world has been affected by many things and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of them. Unfortunately it is a environmental disaster that will be too difficult to fix. The only thing we can do now is stop it from getting bigger.
Bibliography
- Doucett, K (2009), 'An Ocean Of Plastic', Rolling Stone, no. 1090, pp. 54-57
- Reed, C (2015). 'Paying with plastic The plastic age Plastic dystopid Cold Plastic', New Scientist, vol. 225, no. 3006, p.1
- Smith, D (2011). 'Plastic fibres and increasing threat to marine environment, study shows, Sydney Morning Herald, p.5
- National Geographic Society (2015). 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch'. [Online] Available at: http://education.nationalgeographic.com.au/education/encyclopedia/great-pac... [Accessed 9 Apr. 2015] ealey, J (2010). 'Recycling and Managing Waste'.Thirroul, NSW: The Spinney Press
- Blomberg, L (2011). 'The Great Pacific Garbage Patch'. EMagazine.
- National Geographic Society (2015). 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch'. [Online] Available at: http://education.nationalgeographic.com.au/education/encyclopedia/great-pac... [Accessed 9 Apr. 2015]
