The Texas-sized Pacific garbage patch
Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash
Excerpt:
Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.
Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.
Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.
But once it does split into pieces, the fragments look like confetti in the water. Millions, billions, trillions and more of these particles are floating in the world’s trash-filled gyres
Comments: More in Wiki; Just makes one want to cry! I'm awaiting the New Heavens and the New Earth! (2 Peter 3:13)
Ya know, if you could figure out a way of harvesting it, ya might be able to make a bundle.....take it to a power plant on the coast and burn it.....
ReplyDeleteThis really is sad...This is one reason why my wife and I strive to use as little plastic as possible now. We try to reuse grocery bags. (I take the same grocery bag to work all week for my lunch, then throw it away.) We also try to use paper instead of plastic at the grocery, but sometimes plastic is easier to transport certain things.
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