Great Pacific Garbage Patch

[bleys]

Read about this, maybe last year (dont really remember), about an enormous patch of trash that accumulates in the Pacific ocean.. Several main currents in the Pacific (from the coach of Asia to the coast of North America) collect trash and center in the Pacific ocean...

A guy on Letterman was talking about this tonight and brought it back to my attention.. thought I would post a link from wikipedia for more information...

Those of us who do not recycle or those of us who litter should be aware of what we are doing to the environment..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

something else to check out: http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Honolulu-Patch-Of-Plastic13feb06.htm

[ItsNotGonnaBeAlright]

Why do the Pacific currents collect more trash than the other current cycles in the world?

Seems important, but just curious.

[bleys]

TBH, can't exactly remember, was a while I ago I read most of this.. from what I remember reading, the ocean currents run counter-clockwise from Asia to America.. The trash collects in the middle and is several hundred football fields long... (IIRC)

this guy had a large bowl of "sand" collected from some beach off of California that is small bits of plastic (similar to sea shells) that animals attempt to eat and gets stuck in their stomach..

[LiQuiD]

Actually the size of this thing is astounding.

From Wikipedia:

Estimates on size range from 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres (5,800,000 sq mi) (0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean), or, in some media reports, up to "twice the size of the continental United States".[13] Such estimates, however, are conjectural based on the complexities of sampling and the need to assess findings against other areas.

[Happy Panther]

There is one in the Atlantic too, presumably not as big.

[Darth Biscuit]

It's those damn dolphins and their cigarettes...

[House]

Why do the Pacific currents collect more trash than the other current cycles in the world?

Seems important, but just curious.

China, Malaysia, Japan and Singapore (until recently) all horrible polluters. In all of those countries you can't get in the ocean.

If you fall in the water in the ports at Japan you have to get 25 shots to cover against possible disease. Singapore is even worse. A lot of that junk probably came from over there. Not to say the US didn't have a hand in it though.

[Happy Panther]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/15/tech/main6398470.shtml

Just discovered another atlantic one

[CharlotteBeer.com]

I firmly believe we're going to create a real-life Godzilla from all of this waste.

Or maybe we need to call upon Godzilla to incinerate all this garbage?

[Carolina Husker]

Actually the size of this thing is astounding.

From Wikipedia:

How is it even possible that it could be twice the size of the continental US?

[Guest]

Thats why I've been using those green re-usable bags that you get at HT, limiting how much plastic bottled water I buy, etc.

[mmmbeans]

ugh.

[CharlotteBeer.com]

How is it even possible that it could be twice the size of the continental US?

That's what she said.

[Carolina Husker]

ugh.

wtf is that