Yeah this has been my biggest concern for a while. Since I am in the charter sport fishing industry and spend lots of time on the Pacific. I am one of the few captains that will actually stop and pick up plastic floating trash when I encounter it. I probably could have filled a garbage truck last year.
The garbage patch in the Pacific is not the only one. They exist in all the oceans now and they are all growing fast. When the Pacific gyre was discovered 10-12 years ago it was estimated to be the size of Texas but already an equal amount of trash was drifting out to join with it. Now they are much larger and still much more is added to the problem daily.
In the US we produce millions of tons of plastic products every year and we recycle less than 5% of it. Much is manufactured for a single use, like shopping bags, water bottles and food wrappers. If thrown away properly, this all goes to the landfill and is buried where it will last for several hundred or maybe a thousand years. That means up to 50 generations of your descendants could be dealing with what you throw away today.
In the ocean, it photo degrades gets bashed and broken into small pieces much faster so much of the plastics out there are like fingernail size. Small enough that it would be really hard for us to clean it up but just the right size for animals to think it's something to eat. We are catching salmon and other fish with this stuff in their guts. They can't digest it and it won't go through. If they get enough, they starve to death. When they die and decompose all that's left is the plastic which still floats and can do it again. I saw where they caught a little finger sized fish and it's stomach had something like 186 tiny bits of plastic in it.
I'm expecting that we will see a big die off of fish, birds and whales in the near future just from the obvious effect of this pollution but it could be causing a bigger problem. I don't know all the science behind it but I have heard that as the plastic photo degrades, it releases some chemicals. These chemicals have been shown to kill off phytoplankton which is the base of the food chain. Besides that, phytoplankton in the oceans and waterways of the world absorbs Co2 and gives off oxygen. Some research suggests that 50-70% of our oxygen comes from these little guys.
I would list this as one of the biggest man made threats to the planet and one of the easiest ones to do something about. We need to go back to using glass and aluminum containers instead of plastic bottles. We need to use grocery bags that are paper or better yet, the permanent canvas type. Basically all packaging that can be done with recycled materials instead of plastic. The remaining plastic products should all be collected and recycle what we can. Plastics in general may be manufactured differently so it is more easily recycled or more biodegradable.

Lots of information on Youtube. Search for "pacific garbage patch" or gyre. Cousteau has one on there.

Toxic waist off the coast of Italy. article after article ok. But dumping is all over the world.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 99289.html

Some 300 people are believed to have died from the poisonous chemicals. Many European, US and Asian shipping firms – notably Switzerland’s Achair Partners and Italy’s Progresso – signed dumping deals in the early 1990s with Somalia’s politicians and militia leaders.

This meant they could use the coast as a toxic dumping ground. This practice became widespread as the country descended into civil war. Nick Nuttall of the UN Environment Program said, "European companies found it was very cheap to get rid of the waste.

"It cost as little as £1.70 a ton, whereas waste disposal costs in Europe was something like £670 a ton. "And the waste is of many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it."
http://universaljellyfish.blogspot.com/ ... rates.html

Nuclear and Toxic Waste: Tsunami Uncovers Poisons Dumped Off Somali Coast

Posted in ALL, CAUSES & EVENTS, Current Events/General Miscellaneous, Political Mambo Jambos, Rights, Education and Worthy Causes by Truth Seeker on April 10, 2009
In 1997 and 1998, the [excellent] Italian newspaper Famiglia Cristiana, which jointly investigated the allegations with the Italian branch of Greenpeace, published a series of articles detailing the extent of illegal dumping by a Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso.

http://bariisiyobasto.wordpress.com/200 ... ali-coast/

Nuclear Waste Disposal Doesn’t Have

to Be So Expensive: says Mafia

The enterprising corporate arm of Mafia has found an answer (!) to the age old problem of energy growth: Go Nuclear!

And don’t worry about the astronomical cost of “disposing” of the permanent waste. They will dump it in the ocean for you at premium prices.

Italian authorities have located the wreck of a vessel with 180 barrels of toxic waste on board, which they say was sunk by the mafia, off the south coast of Italy. The sunken ship is reported to be one of more than 30 scuttled by Cosa Nostra.

http://ecodelmar.org/content/index.php? ... Itemid=112

This is probably where all those bottles I put messages end up in.

pardon my apathy but if you look at the fish population and undersea life of those two areas, you will find them thriving. Our garbage is food and shelter to marine animals. The plastic can rings that frightened everyone in the late 80s hasnt lowered the population of cetaceans or sharks. These are all alarmist news trying to get themselves noticed from the terrorists plots and global economy. The worst that would happen is that we poison the fish so that hey become inedible for humans. The fish will survive but we just cant eat them. Wont that be something. Mother nature is a tough bitch and it would take more than human garbage to kill her.

Yeah I'd be interested in your source saying that marine life in areas of the garbage patches are thriving. Just curious, don't take that wrong. The research that I've seen indicates that there is around six times more plastic in the water than there is plankton. More or less depending on the specific area but that seems to be the rough average. I just can't see how that could be favorable in any way to marine life.

Sure, some creatures will use some larger stuff for shelter. I've seen this many times in fact but only after a floating object grows a layer of barnacles and seaweed. A drifting piece of net will become shelter for small fish and a death trap for larger ones and birds.

I wouldn't agree that plastic garbage could be considered food, even if they do eat it. If you have a nice peanut butter and plastic bag sandwich every day for a week, I think you'll agree. Those plastic bags look allot like a jellyfish in the water and jellies are a major food for many creatures.

It's fairly common knowledge that the world's population of sharks is on a rapid decline but it's due mostly to overfishing and not plastic can rings. You might want to do a search for Mae West the sea turtle though.

One thing that bugs me most is that the baleen whales filter the water for plankton and small fish. It's the only way they can eat. So far, their feeding areas are not too affected but if this continues it will be bad for them. I have seen a gray whale with a plastic bag hanging in it's baleen. It's gross.

You are right about mother nature being tough. She'll kill us before we kill her. I'm sure of that. Poison fish might do it too. With a global population of over 6 billion, they currently estimate that almost 1 billion is undernourished. Globally, 140 million tons of fish provide around 20% of the consumed animal protein annually. Current estimates that 52% of fish stocks are fully fished to Maximum Sustainable Yield, whereas 25% of the stocks are overfished, and only 23% of the stocks could produce more (FAO, 2007). The wild capture fisheries potential worldwide is largely at its limit: it has reached a plateau. Increases in wild capture fisheries would have to come through restoring overfished populations. All projections point to increased demand for fishery products in the future. Moreover, there is general agreement that aquatic ecosystems are in decline in most parts of the world. The cause is well publicized in the news media: widespread overfishing, coastal degradation, and pollution. This is all well documented. Basically, this adds up to less fish for more people, higher prices, more overfishing and degrading habitat. Throw in some nice toxins for good measure =)

I will do something that on its face looks counterproductive. I will show you a video the bad effects of trash in the ocean. These people hate trash and plastic in the pacific and they are reporting on it.



BTW, it seems,on my research, that the trash ares is twice the size of Texas, not America and that on some areas it is 10 meters deep not everywhere. i would hazard to say that they are mistaking the pacific gyre with the trash heap.

Now, why did I show you an anti-trash video? First look at the ocean from the top. It look clear, there are no massive structures of plastic trash poking out of the water, it doesnt look like a trash dump. I just wanted to put that out there in case someone here has the imagination to think there is a floating dump site in the Pacific. Now, look closely on al the large pieces of floating trash they pick up. At about 1:27 you see a discarded life vest, A bird rests on an orange plastic whatzits. Notice the amount of life that was embedded on the life vest and that bird was probably chillin till they scared it away. Life thrives. Look closely on the pictures of trash and will start to notice, barnacles, seaweed, crustaceans. Even if you look at the jellyfish with the plastic inside, you can see that its fairly healthy. There are no dead fish floating on the surface so that means healthy predation.

They say they troll for plastic but didnt show for how long and how much they got. Just that Bowl of goop. they take what they get then put it in a large jar to show to the camera and you assume that is the concentration of stuff in the water. Is it? I highly dont think so.

I will not argue that there is six times more plastic than plankton in the pacific gyre. Heres what its looks like



I want you to look at the lower right of the image. It saysthat small fish mistake the small plastic pieces for zooplankton and ingest it and absorb the chemicals. Larger fish eat the small fish and absorb the chemicals also and humans eat the larger fish thus completing Mother Natures revenge. Who says plastics arent bio-degradable.

i find some picture：
http://www.ycwb.com/news/2009-11/16/con ... 1131_7.htm

Hey I think they are looking for us!!!!!

Wow, this is so sad...

This is by far an important issue; we as human's, as well as, earth and its every means of life will suffer within the future if not dealt with in the present. Water Is our birth, cheers to life.

~
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Im not exactly sure what the title of the documentry was called, it may of been on TV if i recall correctly. Couple of people made a raft type boat out of Recyclable's and sailed around the garbage ring to Hawaii from California. Circulating from South to North of the garbage patch. Check it out if you can find it. It is a really interesting documentary. Im looking for it as i currently post. Will reply if i find it!

It all boils down to this. A snack company put its product in a completely bio-degradable bag. Good thing you would think huh? Well people did not like the noise the bag made so they cried to the company. Well the company caved in and changed back to the polluting bag that helps destroy our earth. THAT IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR SOCIETY. PERIOD. Nothing more needs to be said.

There are so many stories like this one where man tries to hide their waste and many other horror stories about the way we treat our planet and its habitants, if you knew every single one of them you would wonder how come this planet is still as beautilfull as it is now.

Humanity wants to not see it. Just like the picture says, out of sight, out of mind.

My boyfreind watched a show one time about bad things being done to our see creatures. He talked about it in detail to me after watching it (cause I was not home when he did) and then one day, it plays again and I'm home. He wanted to know if I wanted to watch it and my answer was no.
I can't watch these because then, i am upside down and inside out for quite a while.

Some of you that's been here longer as seen me once going on and on about not using bottled water. That passion came from a documentary I watched once I think it was called:" water world" I stopped buying bottled water ever since. I didn't understand why it was that a lot of you kept saying that they wern't going to get intoxicated by there tap water and will continue buying it...I was outraged! until I watch the documentary "gasland" only then, did I get it.
(We have strict regulations here in canada for tap water. It is tested every day multiple times a day and it as to be good or else... but not every where is like this)

Anyhow all of this to basically say, we are not aware of everything if we were, maybe things could start improving. ("they" powers that be hide a lot of what there doing from the population)

I don't like watching anything like that either...a lot of damage is being done with dumping stuff into our oceans...the latest the radioactive water from Japan Nuclear Plant. Sad, Sad, Sad,

If it's 90% plastic, and most of that 90% is made up of the sources identified, then it has the potential to be recycled. Plastic bottles can be woven into fabrics, compressed into solid forms, etc.

I was thinking about the Pacific Gyre dump this weekend. I thought about the potential of building a ship with the ability to recycle these articles on board. From a hippie-saving-the-earth standpoint, you could be seen as saving the ocean. From a commercial standpoint, you could charge a premium to those bleeding-heart hippies for your recycled product.

Anyone wanna start a fun afternoon project with me?