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'Great Garbage Patch' Not So Great After All....The
massive floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean isn't nearly as
large as reports have claimed, according to a new study.
(In reading this I wonder where these folks where at? We need to take care, to get more info about things, I don't care who is writing the article. Ana)
- By Emily Sohn
Wed Jan 12, 2011 07:00 AM ET
It's been called the Great Garbage Patch and "the most shocking
thing" Oprah has ever seen: a massive island of plastic in the Pacific
Ocean that, according to many reports, is twice the size of Texas,
out numbers plankton, and has killed millions of sea birds.
But many of those claims, according to a new analysis, are huge exaggerations. Others are downright false.
Plastic is definitely a problem in the oceans, both for animal life
and the environment, said Angel White, a microbial oceanographer at
Oregon State University in Corvallis. But there are not floating towers
of milk jugs, toilet seats and rubber duckies swirling in the middle of
the ocean.
Instead, the majority of plastic in the sea consists of confetti-like
specks that are spread out widely and nearly impossible to see with the
naked eye.
Setting the record straight about what's out there is key to
regaining the trust of a wary public, White said. In 2008, she joined an
expedition with the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and
Education. It was a boat trip from Hawaii to California, through the
heart of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
"None of us on that cruise had been to the patch, but we had all
heard that it's twice the size of Texas. That's in a textbook," she
said. "These statements are so frequent and in so many places that they
are accepted as fact. But they undermine the credibility of those
advocating for reduction of plastic pollution in the terrestrial and
marine environments."
"Plastic is everywhere," and it's insidious, she said. "But it's not a patch."
White's main goal on the research cruise was to look at relationships
between plastic and marine microbes. Along with experiments on
microbial respiration and productivity rates, she and colleagues
tediously counted and sorted pieces of plastic that were caught in nets
towed behind the boat.
When the scientists extrapolated their results into estimates of how
much plastic is swirling in ocean gyres, their numbers were just about
the same as what other studies have found. But those numbers don't match
up with the imagery often described in the media, White said. She has
presented her findings to other experts and is preparing a paper for
publication.
"You might see a piece of Styrofoam or a bit of fishing line float by
at random intervals after hours or 20 minutes, but greater than 90
percent of the plastic was less than 10 millimeters in diameter," she
said. "If you filled a thousand Nalgene water bottles in the North
Pacific, three to five would have one piece of plastic in them the size
of an eraser."
On an expedition through the garbage patch last summer with the Sea
Education Association and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,
author and biogeographer David M. Lawrence noticed a similar pattern.
Most of the plastic their boat picked up was tiny, widely dispersed and
invisible to the naked eye.
(Perhaps those that are dumping, cruise ships?, are weighting down plastic bags or dumping in different areas, where the current take them further out instead of coming to shore?? Ana)
"I was under the impression that you had these big conglomerations
that were like Empire State buildings-tall," said Lawrence, who's based
in Mechanicsville, Va., and was not surprised by White's analysis. "But
that's not what it's like."
Even as the garbage patch fails to live up to the hype of a floating
continent, Lawrence added, the truth might actually be worse and far
more insidious. Compared to a big mound of trash, for one thing, it's
impossible to clean up tons of tiny and widespread specks of plastic.
You can't just scoop them up.
Without a dramatic metaphor expressed in "units Texas," White said,
it also becomes more challenging to define the extent of the problem to
the public. Even scientists still don't know how deep the plastic goes
or how much of it is now sitting on the seafloor.
Still, small bits of plastic pose a variety of threats to the
environment. They often end up inside fish and can work their way up the
food chain. And plastics that are exposed to the elements release
chemicals as they break down -- all with unknown but worrisome
consequences for animals, water quality and human health.
"There is no reason to have plastic in the marine environment," White
said. "But I think we undermine the issue by overstating the results.
It's like crying wolf. That's the danger."
https://news.discovery.com/earth/ocean-garbage-patch-exaggerated-110112.html#mkcpgn=emnws1
- By Emily Sohn
Wed Jan 12, 2011 07:00 AM ET
-->posted on Jan 12, 2011 9:27 AM ()
Uggghhh! We have to push for better recycling programs, use recycling personally and avoid plastic whenever possible.I've seen these reports (like on 60 Minutes). We tend to exaggerate, but the problem is real. Ocean plastics are out there in great numbers. Creatures ingest them and die horrible deaths. We can't simply ignore it just because we don't actually see "mountains" of garbage.
we do not used this.We bring our own bags to shop.Markets,dept.store etc.
I am so disgusting to see all the plastic bags in the Market that people have not waked up to the fact to get rid of this garbage.You know what?
Most of these are the elderly .They need to be educated.
I don't know what it is like in the US, but over here, we are now big in recycling glass, paper and of course 'plastic'. Our rubbish (garbage) collection is not merely remembering to put your dustbin out on the required collection day, but the rubbish also has to be placed in seperate bags according to what type of waste it is. A seperate van comes to collect the bags, after the 'main' truck has sorted out the main 'bin'. It is a little more 'work', but if it is for 'the greater good', then so be it.
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