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The garbage patches are on the rise. More and more plastics are making their way into the ocean everyday. While you may think the plastic bag on the side of the road is harmless, really, it may be the leader that forms a new garbage patch. This harms every creature on earth indirectly and directly. That plastic bag may end up killing an innocent sea turtle or Albatross bird. Once it breaks into smaller particles, it may end up in a fish’s tissues on your plate.
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Fun (and Sad) Facts about Garbage Patches and Plastic:
- There are two garbage patches in the Atlantic Ocean, two in the Pacific Ocean, and one in the Indian Ocean. These do not include the other numerous waterways with excessive plastic pollution.
- Garbage Patches form due to currents in the water caused by the rotation of the earth.
- Plastic is photodegradable, not biodegradable. This means that the sun can break the plastic into smaller and smaller plastic particles, but plastic can never degrade all the way into a natural, harmless substance.
- Compostable plastics will not compost unless they are in proper conditions. Even if they are, compostable plastics take months to break down. If the compostable plastic does end up composting, you end up with toxic chemicals in your compost.
- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been estimated to span from the California coast to the country of Japan.
- Many people believe garbage patches are garbage islands. This is false. In fact, the areas of the garbage patches with a high concentration of plastic (i.e. a lot of plastic in those areas) contain water that looks as if someone had thrown plastic confetti in the water. Some call it a plastic soup.
- About 2 million plastic water bottles are used every 5 minutes in North America as depicted in this photo by Chris Jordan. Click here to view the photo.
- A plastic bag is the number one consumer item.
- Plastic attracts extremely harmful chemicals that are now unfortunately in the ocean such as pesticides like DDT. Since plastics are lipophilic (having the ability to dissolve in fats/oils), they bring the harmful chemicals along into the body of the animal that ingested the plastic. This causes damage to the body and the health of the animal
Great website with good information about this topic. I believe it is really good people like me and you give more attention to this topic. I am amazed that hardly nobody knows about this and that this huge disaster has been so long under the radar of any media attention. There are many solutions that can be taken (i.e. allow only biodegradable plastic) only this has to be known with public officials and corporate decision makers.
We are so glad that you are interested and dedicated to this topic. Please contact us if you would like any other information about our organization or you would like to get involved.
Nice work! Captain Moore, the guy responsible for all the research we rely on to bring this to the attention of the public, is now doing a tour of the Pacific Rim countries, like China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. If you haven’t heard him speak or read his book, PLASTIC OCEAN, please get a copy. He will be back again to visit SD in November.
Sadly, there is no such thing as a reliable biodegradable plastic. Best approach is to address one’s plastic addiction and don’t be fooled by deceptive promises of recycling.