You might not know it, but the world’s biggest “landfill” is actually floating on and just beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. It can be seen from space, and is just one of many massive patches of trash, mostly made up of plastic, that makes its way from consumers all the way out to remote stretches of the world’s oceans. What are these floating trash heaps, and how did they get to be so large? Let’s take a closer look, and discuss some possible solutions for eliminating them.
Understanding Gyres
In oceanography, a gyre is an enormous system composed of rotating ocean currents and wind movement. Caused by a phenomenon known as the Coriolis Effect and circular wind torque patterns, gyres are naturally occurring. Dust devils and other types of natural vortices are types of gyres, as well. There are five major gyres in seas and oceans around the world, and a number of smaller ones. The major gyres are located in the north pacific, the south Pacific, the north Atlantic, the south Atlantic, and the Indian Oceans. Additional gyres can be found in several tropical locations, as well as in areas as remote as the Weddell and Ross seas in Antarctica.
The World’s Biggest Garbage Dump: What Happened?
If you have ever taken a load of refuse to a landfill, and looked out across the acres of trash, then you know how incredible it is to see so much garbage in a single place. Not only is the sight frighteningly fascinating, it is also a scary reminder of how much we humans actually waste each and every day.
Now, picture a huge floating garbage dump that stretches away for as far as the eye can see. Some of the garbage in this dump floats on top of the water – bits of foamy flotsam, plastic doll heads, disposable lids from hot beverage containers, half-deflated beach balls, and even rubber duckies, all tangled up among fishing nets and Styrofoam floats long forgotten by their owners. Even more of the garbage bobs along underneath the water’s surface. Plastic shopping bags filled with water look almost like ghostly jellyfish, and bottles, some with caps, and some without, are just as eerie. This is the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, just one of the Great Pacific Garbage Patches. It’s not an island made of trash; instead, it is clusters and chunks here and there, covering the entire area of this particular gyre, which is about twice the size of Texas. It is located out in the middle of nowhere, between California and Hawaii.
The garbage patches in the Pacific were once thought to be a single patch, however it has now been determined that they are two separate patches. The existence of a garbage patch in the Atlantic has been confirmed, and there is another in the Indian Ocean. In surveys conducted between 2007 and 2008, researchers at the British Antarctic Survey, accompanied by Greenpeace, found the beginnings of garbage patches in Antarctica, in the remote Durmont D’Urville, Amundsen, and Davis Seas.
While there are occasional bits of wood and other non-plastic debris caught up in garbage patches and washing up on beaches, most of the world’s floating trash is plastic. It makes up about ninety percent of the world’s solid ocean pollution. The amount of trash in these floating dumps is growing; of the over 200 billion pounds of plastic produced worldwide each year, approximately ten percent ends up in the ocean. About 70% of that sinks, and the rest floats. What we can see near the surface is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Besides the trash you can see trapped in the gyres, there are small particles of plastic that have worn away over the years, transforming themselves into little chips in colors like white, red, yellow, blue, and green. These little chips, called nurdles or mermaid’s tears, along with intact bottle caps and rings from plastic jugs, look a lot like food to fish and birds, who gulp them down indiscriminately. About a million sea birds die from plastic ingestion each year, and so do countless fish. When deceased specimens are opened up for necropsy, scientists find all sorts of plastic in their stomachs and other digestive organs. Much of this feeding takes place on the periphery of the garbage patches; the areas with the most trash tend to be located in the oceanic desert located in the middle of the gyre; here, most of the life consists of plankton; even these little organisms are outweighed six to one by the trash.
What We Can Do to Shrink Trash Islands
The amount of non-biodegradable garbage in the world’s oceans has been increasing steadily since the 1950’s, when disposable plastics suddenly became the rage. Since then, people haven’t looked back; take a look all around you, and what do you see? Plastics – your computer, your shoes, your refrigerator, and your car or bicycle all contain plastic components. At one time, plastics were simply thrown away; today, recycling is bigger and better than ever. And, recycling is the key to cleaning up the oceans and the rest of the world’s pollution.
Nearly everything can be repurposed or recycled, and often, purchasing items that contain at least partial post-consumer content makes sense financially as well as from a planetary perspective. Some great examples of items made from recycled plastics include carpeting, lawn and garden furniture, fabric used for making soft outerwear, and many other useful things. In Scotland, a new bridge made from recycled materials crosses the river Tweed; capable of carrying 44 tons, the bridge cost $300 USD less per square foot than a similar bridge made from conventional materials would have.
When you buy things, what do you choose? Which companies do you sponsor? What do your spending habits say about your commitment to making the world a greener place? These are tough questions, but they’re important. When you throw things “away,” where do they go? Some communities do an excellent job with programs such as single stream recycling, which encourage consumers who wouldn’t otherwise recycle to do so. Others burn garbage in giant incinerators that provide heat and electricity for college campuses and government complexes; these incinerators are equipped with dozens of filters that prevent toxins from entering the air. Garbage doesn’t have to end up in the ocean. With a concerted effort and by educating as many people as possible worldwide, we can perhaps one day live on a clean, healthy planet.