The Great Pacific Garbage
Patch
What is it?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of
marine debris in the north pacific ocean. The
garbage patch is also known as the pacific trash
vortex. The amount of rubbish in the area is
massive, and the debris is growing quickly.
Pollution, is just one of many human interferences
and this particular garbage patch, is just one of
many.
How does it get there?
The debris in the great garbage patch, generally starts on land, then linked together by the
North Pacific subtropical Convergence zone. This zone acts as a highway to rubbish, and
takes them directly to what is know as a gyre. Gyres are currents rotating generally in a
clockwise direction, due to the wind and rotation of the earth. Gyres are found
throughout the ocean and make lots of garbage patches. Once the rubbish enters the
gyre, it becomes trapped in the center of it. The center of a gyre is more calm and stable,
therefor traps any debris inside of the gyre. This process leaves many patches around the
ocean, some worse then others.
Where does it come from?
The debris from different countries collect up in different
gyres. The debris from the great pacific garbage patch
generally comes from north America. However the rubbish
from North America only makes up 80% of the patch. The
remaining 20% comes from cargo ships or offshore oil rigs.
Other Garbage patches
There are five main gyres containing rubbish patches,
all of these are similar size. The great pacific garbage
patch is said to be the biggest though. The Indian
ocean gyre has an unusual anti clockwise flow,
whereas the remaining four are rotating clockwise.
There others include the North Atlantic gyre, The
North Pacific gyre (the great pacific garbage patch),
the South Atlantic gyre and the south pacific gyre. All
of these patches are unimaginably big.
The effect on animals
The masses of garbage obviously has a big effect on
animals. Some examples of this, is the unnatural
behave of Albatrosses. These birds pick up the plastic
assuming they are fish eggs or another food source.
They then take these to their chicks, which then die of
starvation or ruptured organs. Loggerhead turtles are
another example, as their favorite snacks are sea
jellies. Plastic bags are very similar shape and color to
jellies, therefor they end up in the stomach of a turtle,
who then suffers from floaters syndrome. The debris in
the ocean has no nutritional value, and can remain in
the stomach of an animal for years and years. The
rubbish is also blocking sunlight from organisms like
algae and plankton.
Who discovered the Garbage Patch?
The great pacific garbage
patch wasn’t always a big
problem. Scientists thought
that it might have excited,
but had never found it. One
day a sailor called Charles
Moore was in a yachting
race, when he realized he
was sailing over millions of
pieces of garbage. Moore
has ever since collected
research and made
discoveries on the
development f the patch.
Why can’t we just clean it up?
Cleaning the patch seems simple and easy, but many issue
follow that. It would take 67 ships one year to clean up less
than 1% of the debris. The plastic has doubled over five
years, and is showing very little hope. Simply scoop the
rubbish out will remove and kill millions of animals and
make the food chain worse. Moore said any country ho
tried to clean it up would become bankrupt. But no
countries are even taking responsibility or funding to clean
the debris. Therefore, as a start everyone needs to recycle,
reuse and reduce their rubbish to decrease the debris in
the ocean.