The Great Trouble of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Photo by 10 Rivers 1 Ocean.

The ocean is full of many wonders – a million species of fascinating animals, beautiful, biodiverse coral reefs, and unexplored, mysterious depths. Unfortunately, it is also full of plastic. In the Pacific Ocean alone, between the western coast of California and Hawaii, there is an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic covering an area twice the size of Texas. All this plastic is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch was first discovered in 1997 by racing boat captain Charles Moore, who noticed the significant amounts of plastic in the ocean as he was returning from Hawaii to California after a race. He observed that where there should have been clear, pristine ocean, all that he could see was garbage. This discovery was widely reported on, and led to the further discovery that since every ocean has gyres that can trap debris, every ocean has at least one garbage patch. Within the Pacific Ocean itself there is a second patch between Hawaii and Japan.

While it is easy to imagine the Great Pacific Garbage Patch looking like a giant island of trash, the reality is that it is much more like a “cloudy soup.” The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is primarily made up of mircoplastics. Plastic does not decompose, it simply breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called mircoplastics, a process which the ocean accelerates through the motion of the waves and the sunlight. When plastic and other debris enters are oceans, they often become swept up in gyres, or ocean currents. The gyres have a calm, stable center, so often the debris becomes trapped in the gyre, which creates the Garbage Patch.

Why is it a problem?

Plastic Food Chain. Photo by Debris Free Oceans.

Plastic is not biodegradable, which means it is unable to decompose and return to the earth. This means that the plastic that is in our oceans – and all plastic, for that matter – will remain unless it is manually removed. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in a very remote part of the Pacific Ocean, so it is not easily accessible to people who want to remove the plastic from the ocean. Furthermore, because the locations of the garbage patches are not close to any shore, no country is willing to take responsibility for cleaning them up. Cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t straightforward either. The ocean surface is full of life, so scooping it out with a net could also harm the wildlife.

The plastic and debris also has catastrophic effects on the animals and wildlife living in oceans. Not only can marine animals become trapped in debris, especially fishing nets, but they can mistake the shiny plastic in the water for nutritious food. Loggerhead turtles can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, their primary prey. Albatrosses can mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs, which can lead to starvation and ruptured organs. Fish as well can consume the microplastics, and when the fish are caught, sold at a market, and consumed by humans, the plastic has then transferred to the human.

What is being done to clean it up?

Although no country might take responsibility for cleaning up the garbage patches, there are still incredible individuals and organizations who are taking on the responsibility. The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, works on not only cleaning up the garbage patches, but preventing plastic and debris from entering the oceans to begin with.

Debris recovered from the ocean. Photo by The Ocean Cleanup.

To remove the debris from the garbage patches, The Ocean Cleanup creates an artificial coastline with a U-shaped barrier that is connected to two boats to concentrate the plastic. The boats move at a slow pace so that wildlife will be able to swim away and not become trapped. Once the debris has been removed from the water, the plastic is recycled.

One thing that everyone can do to help keep plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is decrease their personal waste stream. By buying fewer single use items and properly recycling and disposing what we can, we decrease the chance of waste ending up in the oceans.

As well, volunteer with Keep Knoxville Beautiful, Ijams Nature Center, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, or another great environmental nonprofit that focuses on removing litter from our roadways and waterways. At Keep Knoxville Beautiful, we like to say that litter doesn’t stop where it drops. A piece of litter may be left on the side of the road, but once it rains, it will get washed into a storm drain, which will lead to a creek, which will connect with our beautiful Tennessee River. Litter and trash will end up in our waterways, so we can help by simply picking up the trash that we see. Picking up a piece of trash along a road in Knox County can help protect our rivers and oceans, and will be one less piece of trash that might end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch!