The Pacific Ocean hosts the largest trash dump on Earth. It is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it’s at least as big as Texas but might be much larger. Estimates are that it holds more than 3.5 million tons of garbage and at least 80% of it is plastic.
Waste that has been dumped on both land and sea has worked its way into a swirling mass of trash in the ocean that threatens sea life, ecosystems, the fishing industry, and the safety of our seafood supply. Plastic does not biodegrade but it does photodegrade. The sun’s rays dry the floating plastic to the point that it shatters. The end result is countless little bits of plastic that float below the surface reaching down to about 300 feet.
There have been proposals to try to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch but the task would be herculean in scope. A group from the Ocean Voyages Institute wants to dredge up the garbage and turn it into fuel. However, the project would be time-consuming, fuel-consuming, resource-consuming, wildly expensive, and itself a threat to sea life.
So what can be done about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Perhaps the most important thing to do is to drastically change the status quo that has led to the garbage patch in the first place. We need to use less plastic and recycle the plastic that we do use. Switching over to biodegradable plastic substitutes needs to happen on a massive scale.
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Could we clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Photo, posted February 28, 2010, courtesy of Kevin Krejci via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.