The Worlds Oceans also known as the Worlds Landfill
By: Dean Riley
11th of December 2015
You’re at Disneyland enjoying the happiness place on earth. You’re running around with so much joy and having the best day. Then out of nowhere you fall and lose ahold of your balloon. Little do you know the balloon you just released might possibly be responsible for killing a hungry sea turtle that mistakes it for food. The Great Pacific garbage patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, is a floating landfill for human trash that is responsible for much marine destruction. Located in the southern Pacific, it can be described as two trash islands in the Pacific that are twice the size of Texas. This landfill, discovered by Charles Moore in 1997 when sailing from Hawaii to California after a yacht race, is formed through currents called gyres that circle around and cause trash to consolidate into two areas. The Great Pacific garbage patch is arguably one of the worst technological or man-made disasters ever produced.
What It Is
The Great Pacific garbage patch was predicted in 1988 when a team of researchers based from Alaska went on a research expedition to measure the neutronic plastic in the North Pacific Ocean. Their findings from 1985-1988 were reported in a paper published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, but the Great Pacific garbage patch wasn’t largely recognized in the public eye until recently. It’s been called a floating junkyard due to what is consists of: trash, and mostly plastic. Scientists estimate there are also over 705,000 tons of fishing nets in the garbage patch, something that directly harms marine life. But the majority of this floating landfill consists of nets, plastic bags, plastic bottles, caps, cans, tires, balloons, barrels, pots, Legos, computer parts, etc. The pollution lies in the North Pacific Ocean between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N, stretching hundreds of miles.
Researchers are yet to determine the exact size of this galaxy of garbage because the boarders and content are continuously being moved from currents and winds. However, some researchers estimate the garbage patch is the size of Texas or twice the size of France. Scientists have been able to confirm and find that the majority of trash accumulates actually in two “islands” of trash. One is located near Hawaii known as the Eastern Garbage patch and the other near Japan called the Western Garbage patch.
Although most of the trash accumulates in these two area’s, pollution still covers a vast area in between the two “islands” with an estimated in the billions of smaller trash islands hidden underwater. Instead of being large islands of trash like many pictures may perceive it to be, most of the trash is floating, hidden underwater in the top portion of the water column. Sailors traveling through these areas often have no idea of the trash and pollution their sailing over, partly due to the trash’s estimated volume of 4 particles per cubic meter of water. Satellite imaging cannot identify the trash due to the majority of trash being broken down micro beads of plastic that even the human eye cannot spot.
How it Forms
On this planet, only humans create waste that nature cannot digest, and in the last 100 years, humans have developed an addiction to plastic. This material, which consists of a variety of synthetic organic polymers with a large molecular mass, can be created and molded into a variety of materials. Plastic’s durability, low cost, and malleability make it popular for consumers and the industries producing them. The recycling of disposed plastics has now reached up to 10 percent globally, but in the large scheme of things, that is a small amount of the estimated 300 million tons of plastic humans produce every year a number that is only growing. And where does all this plastic go? Plastic ends up in our sewers, cannels, rivers, and different waterways, all of which eventually lead to the ocean. Often windstorms, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, and other events bring in large amounts of pollution into our oceans. Scientists estimate that 80 percent of debris in the ocean, in fact, comes from land stationed activities in North American and Asia. The other 20 percent comes from boaters, offshore drilling rigs, and cargo ships that dump or lose trash directly into the ocean. Once all of this trash and pollution reaches our oceans, the winds and currents take them out to sea where the gyres begin to drag them in.
National Geographic defines an ocean gyre as “A system of circular ocean currents formed by the Earth’s wind patterns and the forces created by the rotation of the planet.” The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre forms from currents interacting between California, the North Equatorial, Kuroshiro, and the North Pacific currents. The currents move clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and the middle of these gyres are fairly calm and stable. These spinning gyres are joined by the North pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone near Hawaii. This zone is like a superhighway for trash, as these circling gyres capture the materials in currents, gradually pushing them into the center where they become trapped and draw the pollution around and in around 6 years they accumulate in the center where they trapped and form islands.
When all of this trash and pollution accumulates, the large percentage of trash found is plastic pollutants. Since nature cannot naturally and effectively dispose of this plastic, it stays in the oceans where it directly and indirectly harms sea life. With time, since plastics aren’t biodegradable they get smaller and smaller and form micro plastics. The process, in which the sun continues to breakdown the plastics into smaller and smaller pieces, is known as photodegeneration. Micro plastics look like tiny beads, which are not detectable to the human eye, but when they accumulate in large concentrations, they appear as cloudy or murky water. Scientists estimate that the micro plastics have a 40 times larger presence in the ocean then larger plastic pollutants.
Why It’s Harmful
As the volume of plastic and other debris increase in the ocean, the Great Pacific garbage patch becomes bigger and bigger. The presence of plastic especially harms the ocean and its creatures that rely on it for survival. Nets trap trapped in the garbage patch are causing sea creatures to experiences a slow and gruesome death. Any and all creatures are vulnerable, but it is common to find sharks, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and sea lions trapped and dead in the nets. They float in the gyres and disintegrate away long before the nets ever will.
Plastics are also detrimental. Sea turtles, for example, often die because they eat plastic bags thinking their jellyfish. Other plastics that haven’t yet broken down are killing some creatures in the masses. One common animal is the layson albatross of the Northern Pacific. These vulnerable birds call the northwestern Hawaiian Islands home. Their their population is in such rapid decline, they have been listed as vulnerable in the endangered species list by the World Conservation Union. These birds survive by relying on cephalopods, fish, crustaceans, and other invertebrates for a food source and commonly confuse plastic pollutions in their diet. These incredible birds with over a 6-foot wingspan accidentally eat plastic and other pollution and feed it to their chicks. While the adults can regurgitate this trash, their chicks that rely on them for food cannot and once ingested in the chicks systems, it fills their stomachs till they die.
Micro plastics, an even deadlier entity, lurk just below the surface, unseen by the human eye. This pollution compiles near the oceans surface, blocking precious sunshine that algae and plankton need for survival. This consequently doesn’t allow for these autotrophs to produce their nutrients, dangerously throwing off the whole food chain, because different species of fish do not have enough food. Once there’s less of the fish that eat the autotrophs, there’s less of food for predator fish like dorado, tuna, whales, sharks, and other apex fish. This, in turn, means less fish for birds and land mammals, including humans. The fewer the fish, the higher the dollar goes for fish markets. The Great Pacific garbage patch, in other words, is negatively affecting our entire ecosystem.
Human health is especially an issue.. In the process of these micro plastics breaking down, toxins are both released and absorbed into the ocean like BPA, which can cause issues for the marine and human health. Smaller fish eat these chemicals where its stored in places like fat which then get eaten by a larger fish like tuna. The top apex predators of the ocean have been studied and found that they contain the highest levels of these chemicals. This is causing different health defects such as cancers ski rocket in these apex populations. Humans also are affected when chemicals like PCB’s and DTE’s infiltrate the natural food chain and they eat apex predators who have ingested those chemicals?. . This is starting to be recognized as a problem. In places like Japan women fertility rates are dangerously lowering and discovers are being made of cancer rates continuing to rise.
What Is Being Done
Since its discovery, the Great Pacific garbage patch has continued to grow in and hasn’t stopped. Efforts have been made to try to address this problem, but none have seemed to have a noticeable impact. Beach cleanups, for instance, are popular in the United States with 144,606,491 pounds of trash having been cleaned on beaches in the last 25 years. Unfortunately, beach cleanups barely put a dent and only make the beaches look more aesthetically pleasing.
Missions have also been launched to try to get ships with nets to troll the oceans to clean the trash. The problem is that these nets cannot capture the micro plastics that make up the large percentage of trash. Also while these nets capture trash and pollutants, they catch fish and thus end up being counter productive. Even if scientists could figure out a way to only collect the trash, Charles Moore estimated that even if the wealthiest country trolled the ocean for trash, it would be at such an economic expense that it would “bankrupt any country”on earth.
Even though trolling the ocean is not looked at as an option, companies around the world are researching to find other ways to fix the pollution of plastic in earth’s oceans. The Ocean Clean Up was founded in February 2013 and is one of the leading companies searching to find the solution for the world. Its Salesforce chairman, CEO and founder Marc Benioff says, "Protecting the oceans should be a priority for all of Earth's citizens. The Ocean Cleanup is taking an innovative approach to preserving one of our most critical resources and raising visibility of this global challenge." This company has come up with feasible studies for cleaning up the Great Pacific garbage patch, and continues to be the most prosperous non profit origination in its efforts, helping to shine a light of a solution in the near future. The goal for this company is to start having significant plastic pollution systems launched by 2020 by developing technologies and educating earth’s citizens. Another company with similar interest includes the Ocean Conservancy, claiming, “We’re working to keep the ocean healthy, to keep us healthy.” Their belief is that we cannot have a healthy planet, without a healthy ocean, and is bringing groups of people together to find solution for our planets water. They not only educate citizens of the world about our oceans, but the people that make a living off the ocean’s wealth of resources.
No Easy Fix but Hope
In reality, scientists have yet to confirm how much pollution is actually in the ocean. The majority of scholars and researchers agree that we cannot clean up this mess if we do not know how big it is. The problem is that the ocean is huge. Earth’s surface is covered by 80% of water, and we have yet to get down deep enough of the ocean to even see how much trash is on the bottom. In addition, gyres and currents are constantly moving making it difficult for researcher to find how much plastic and other harmful pollutants are actually in the ocean. They believe once we can develop the strategies and technologies to find out how much pollution is in the ocean, we can figure out a way to successfully clean the seas. This problem cannot be addressed though, if we keep allowing for human waste to continue collecting in earths oceans. This is a problem the younger generations will have to deal with and have to figure out. If we can get a man on the moon with less of technologies than are currently in everyone’s IPhones, then we can clean our oceans.
One solution that has gotten the most media and attention in recent history is a strategy formed by a 19 year old kid from the Netherlands named Boyan Slate. Boyan was influenced to figure out a way to clean earth’s oceans when diving in Mediterranean and found more trash then ocean life. For over a year, he worked on a plan with scientists and researchers on a possible way of cleaning 50% of the trash in less then 10 years. He thought, instead of sending ships out to troll the ocean for trash, why not let the ocean do the work for us. He figured out how to use the currents and gyres that transport the trash to his advantage, by placing stations across the Northern Pacific and allowing the trash to collect and be filtered, without harming sea life. He did this by figuring out how much G-force plankton could handle to survive the extraction process.
While Boyan’s work has received so much attention from the media, he has also received much skepticism. Stiv Wilson, the policy director of a nonprofit called 5Gyres.org, shares the same goal of having a clean ocean and believes Boyan’s plan won’t work. Stiv claims, “The problem is that the barriers to gyre cleanup are so massive, that the vast majority of the scientific and advocacy community believe it’s a fool’s errand – the ocean is big, the plastic harvested is near worthless, and sea life would be harmed. The solution starts on land.” As a part of their mission, Stiv Wilson’s organization takes people other then scientists on expeditions to these gyres. Along with their research, they believe that providing individuals a first hand account of the problem helps to educate and spread the word about the plastic pollution. With organizations like 5gyres.org, The Ocean Cleanup Project, the Ocean Conservancy, and others like them, humans can have a chance in cleaning the world’s oceans.
Although its unclear whether Boyan Slate’s plan will work or not, it continues to shines a light that humans are striving to end the polluting of the earth’s oceans, and there can be a feasible solution in the near future. But again, this problem cannot be addressed unless we stop putting pollution into our oceans. The truth, then, is that as of right now, focusing on prevention through education is the most effective way we have right for humans to clean this mess we have created. Using media, for example, companies like Vice, help to inform and inspire people to change their ways first and not use plastic and other goods that end up in our oceans.
While such companies are useful, its up to each of us to …So next time your at Disneyland, don’t just hang on tightly to your balloon. Start by lessening your consumption of plastic in the first place and inform your friends and family about issues like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In the near future, just maybe, then, we can end our irresponsible usage of harmful plastics and clean our oceans for that hungry sea turtle looking for a tasty lunch.
