great pacific garbage patch

Keeping Trash Out Of The Ocean | Earth Wise

February 23, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization, founded in 2013 by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, to develop and scale technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. It is an organization that proudly declares that its primary aim is to put itself out of business by successfully cleaning up the oceans.

A major activity of The Ocean Cleanup is efforts to clean the ocean garbage patches that have accumulated in several places, best-known of which is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The effort involves use of large U-shaped floating barriers that act as an artificial coastline to trap garbage which is then funneled into a barge for disposal. Ten full-sized systems will be needed to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

A second activity of The Ocean Cleanup is preventing garbage in rivers from making its way into the oceans. Rivers are the main source of ocean plastic pollution. The Ocean Cleanup has developed river machines called Interceptors that capture garbage for disposal. Last fall, they installed a machine called Interceptor 007 in Ballona Creek, a waterway in the Los Angeles area. In the first rainfall after installation, the Interceptor managed to stop 35,000 pounds of waste from entering the ocean in just a few days.

The original Interceptor models have been deployed in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Dominican Republic, and Vietnam. A different type called the Interceptor Trashfence is being tested in Guatemala.

The Ocean Cleanup states that if fleets of its barrier systems are installed in all the garbage patches and Interceptors in the 1000 most significant rivers, 90% of floating ocean plastic can be removed by 2040.

**********

Web Links

The Interceptor 007 Stops 35,000 Pounds Of Trash From Entering Ocean

The Ocean Cleanup

Photo, posted February 23, 2015, courtesy of Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Life In The Great Pacific Garbage Patch | Earth Wise

June 14, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The world’s oceans contain five gyres, which are large systems of circular currents created by global wind patterns and the Earth’s rotation. Gyres act like gigantic whirlpools. Anything that floats into one of them eventually ends up in the center. Ever since floating plastic waste started entering the ocean, it has poured into these gyres and created so-called garbage patches. The largest of these is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located halfway between Hawaii and California. According to the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, the Great Pacific Patch contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic.

A recent study has shown that the garbage patch is not just a place where drifting plastics aggregate; it is also a place where drifting animals aggregate.

It turns out that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is absolutely teeming with life, primarily small surface-dwelling animals that are collectively known as neuston. A ship surveying the garbage patch found that in some places, there were nearly as many neuston as there are pieces of plastic.

Typical creatures in the patch are blue dragon nudibranchs, Portuguese man-o-wars, anemones, sea snails, blue buttons (which are related to jellyfish) and hydrozoans. It appears that these creatures are reproducing within the garbage patch. Little is actually known about the life history and ecology of these creatures, so that studying the garbage patch is offering valuable insights to scientists.

Two nonprofit organizations are working to remove floating plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Evidently, removing this existing pollution from the ocean is likely to have unexpected effects on the local ecosystem and is a source of at least some controversy. One thing that isn’t controversial, however, is that we need to stop the flow of plastic into the ocean.

**********

Web Links

The Ocean’s Biggest Garbage Pile Is Full of Floating Life

Photo, posted in April, 2012, courtesy of Steven Guerrisi via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Tracking Ocean Plastics | Earth Wise

July 30, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Plastic pollution in the oceans is a major problem. An estimated 8 million tons of plastic trash enters the ocean every year. Most of it is broken up by sun and waves into microplastics, which are tiny bits that ride currents for hundreds or thousands of miles. All of this debris is harmful to marine ecosystems, and it is both challenging to track and very difficult to clean up.

University of Michigan researchers have developed a new technique for spotting and tracking ocean microplastics across the globe. The approach relies on the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, which is a constellation of eight microsatellites launched in 2016 to monitor weather near large storm systems. It turns out that the radar systems on CYGNSS that measure surface roughness to calculate the wind speed near the eyes of hurricanes can also be used to detect the presence of microplastics.

With the satellite measurements, the researchers have found that global microplastic concentrations tend to vary by season, peaking during the summer months. For example, June and July are the peak months for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The data also showed spikes in microplastic concentration at the mouth of China’s Yangtze River, long suspected to be a chief source of plastic pollution. The researchers produced visualizations that show microplastic concentrations around the world.

The information provided by the new technique could help organizations that clean up microplastics to deploy ships and other resources more efficiently. Data of single-point release of plastics, such as from rivers, may also be useful to UNESCO, which has sponsored a task force to find new ways to track the release of microplastics into the world’s waters.

**********

Web Links

Ocean microplastics: First global view shows seasonal changes and sources

Photo, posted April 3, 2018, courtesy of Rey Perezoso via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Bugs That Eat Plastic | Earth Wise

September 29, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The world continues to struggle with the proliferation of plastic that is polluting the environment. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now grown so large that it has spread across an area four times the size of California. But there is no silver bullet in the struggle to reduce plastic pollution. Reducing the use of plastic is probably the most viable approach, but increased recycling, the use of bioplastics, and various other strategies must play a role.

The essence of the problem is that plastic takes from decades to hundreds of years to decompose naturally. The world produces billions of tons of plastic waste each year and less than 10% of it is recycled. As a result, researchers around the world seek ways to safely and economically accelerate the decomposition of plastics.

A research team at Andong National University in South Korea has discovered the larvae of a particular species of darkling beetle can decompose polystyrene, which is one of the trickiest plastics to break down. There are thousands of species of darkling beetles found in different habitats all over the world. The one they identified is indigenous to East Asia.

The beetle larvae can consume polystyrene and reduce both its mass and molecular weight. Furthermore, they found that the bacteria in the gut of the larvae could oxidize and change the surface property of polystyrene. The handful of bacterial strains they identified were not like those of earlier insects found to degrade polystyrene. As result, the researchers are hopeful that it may be possible to break down the plastic using other insects that feed on rotten wood. Apart from the insects themselves, using just the bacterial strains found in the darkling beetles may prove to be an effective method for decomposing polystyrene.

**********

Web Links

A New Species of Darkling Beetle Larvae That Degrade Plastic

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

I farmaci a base di erbe e omeopatici rappresentano una percentuale significativa (circa una confezione su otto) dell’assortimento da banco delle farmacie. Nel 2017, i farmaci a base di erbe hanno registrato vendite per 1,48 milioni di euro e 120 milioni di confezioni, mentre maschioforte.com i farmaci omeopatici hanno registrato vendite per 630 milioni di euro e 52 milioni di confezioni, secondo l’Associazione federale dell’industria farmaceutica (Bundesverband der Pharmazeutischen Industrie – BPI).

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Microplastic Hotspots In The Ocean | Earth Wise

June 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many of us are aware of the infamous ocean “garbage patches” of floating plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is roughly the size of Texas. But over 10 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year and the floating patches only account for 1% of that total. The remaining 99% of the plastic ends up in the deep ocean, generally in the form of microplastics – tiny fragments of large plastic debris that have broken down as well as manufactured polyethylene beads used in various products.

According to a new study published in the journal Science, there are actually microplastic hotspots on the ocean floor, formed by deep-sea currents that act as conveyer belts moving the tiny plastic fragments around. One of these hotspots – in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy – contained 1.9 million microplastic pieces in just one square meter of seafloor. This is the highest reported value for any place in the world.

Because of their small size, microplastics can be ingested by organisms across all levels of the marine food chain and eventually find their way into human diets.

The spatial distribution and ultimate fate of ocean microplastics are strongly controlled by near-bed thermohaline currents. These are deep-ocean currents driven by differences in water density, which is controlled by temperature and salinity. Thermohaline currents are known to supply oxygen and nutrients to the flora and fauna found at the ocean bottom. As a result, deep sea biodiversity hotspots are likely to be in same places where there are microplastic hotspots.

The discovery of these deep- sea hotspots is just another reason why we need behavior and policy interventions to limit the flow of plastics into natural environments.

**********

Web Links

Seafloor microplastic hotspots controlled by deep-sea circulation

Photo, posted September 6, 2012, courtesy of Oregon State University via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cleaning Up the Garbage Patch

October 16, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We have been talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for several years. Two years ago, we reported on the activities of a company called Ocean Cleanup, founded five years ago by an 18-year-old Dutch entrepreneur named Boyan Slat. Two years ago, the company was conducting comprehensive surveys of the patch, which covers an area twice the size of Texas and contains some 80,000 tons of plastic debris.

Where Does The Plastic Go?

October 15, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The glut of plastic in the oceans is a global problem. About 9 million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year. Much of it is discarded fishing gear, plastic bags, and other macroscopic objects. But a great deal of it is in the form of microplastics or small particles. Some microplastics come from cosmetics and other products containing them but a lot of them are the result of larger plastic objects breaking down into small particles.

Ocean Cleanup Progress Report

October 24, 2016 By WAMC WEB

Back in June, we talked about The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch foundation founded in 2013 by an 18-year-old named Boyan Slat, which is developing technologies to rid the oceans of the vast collections of plastic that have been accumulating over the past 50 years.

Testing The Ocean Cleanup Array

July 5, 2016 By WAMC WEB

It’s no secret that our oceans are full of plastic. Plastic trash can be found on up to 88% of the oceans’ surfaces, with most of the debris concentrated in the top two meters of water. The plastics gather in certain areas of the ocean due to the swirling nature of ocean currents, known as gyres. Some of these concentrations, such as the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, are so large they can be seen from space.