Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Once waterborne, debris becomes mobile. Flotsam can be blown by the wind, or follow the flow of ocean currents, often ending up in the middle of oceanic gyres where currents are weakest. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one such example of this, comprising a vast region of the North Pacific Ocean rich with anthropogenic wastes. Estimated to be double the size of Texas, the area contains more than 3 million tons of plastic. The gyre contains approximately six pounds of plastic for every pound of plankton per cubic meter of seawater. The oceans may contain as much as one hundred million tons of plastic.
Islands situated within gyres frequently have coastlines flooded by waste that washes ashore; prime examples are Midway and Hawaii. Clean-up teams around the world patrol beaches to attack this environmental threat.
Read more about this topic: Marine Debris
Famous quotes containing the words pacific, garbage and/or patch:
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“To be an editor, as I was.
Then to lie here close by the river over the place
Where the sewage flows from the village,
And the empty cans and garbage are dumped,
And abortions are hidden.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)
“Whatever patch of limb
he gazes on
with unblinking eyes,
I cover up
but I want him to see it all anyway.”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)