The Great Pacific Garbage Patchsoth/The Image Bank/Getty. May 1. 6, 2. 01. 5. These currents are caused by tides, wind, and the fluctuation of water density based on temperature or salt content. These four currents converge at the North Pacific Gyre, also known as the North Pacific Subtropical High. A gyre is a system of rotating ocean currents caused by wind and the Earth's rotational forces. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is actually made up of two patches, the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, located between the west coast of the United States and Hawaii.
Most of the debris of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is pulled into the gyres by one of the four currents, and remains trapped in its calm center. Microplastics. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is comprised largely of microplastics, or microscopic pieces of plastic debris. This type of water pollution is made up of three main types of trash: Plastics. Plastic makes up about 8. Plastic is a cheap and abundant material, and due to its durability and versatility, is a popular choice when constructing consumer and industrial products.
Plastic cannot usually be broken down by living organisms, which means that once it ends up in the ocean, it will stay there, being photo- degraded and pummeled into tiny pieces, but never disappearing. Some of the pieces are extremely small - these microbeads carry their own suite of problems.
Larger debris. Larger debris, which makes up about 2. Sunken trash. The patch contains a considerable amount of sunken trash. Oceanographers recently estimated that up to 7.
The garbage patch is an area of marine debris concentration in the North Pacific Ocean. While 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' is a term often used by the media.
Impacts. The impacts of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are wide ranging and disastrous. Marine wildlife feels the effects of the debris most strongly. A few examples include: Sea turtles, mistaking plastic bags for jellyfish or other marine prey. Albatrosses and other sea birds, feeding bits of plastic to their young, leading them to die of starvation and dehydration.
Seal and other marine mammals, often getting caught in abandoned fishing nets. Filter feeders, who consume plastic bits instead of their normal plankton or fish eggs. The floating plastic can also prevent sunlight from reaching photosynthetic plankton or algae, microscopic organisms that serve a crucial function as the base of the entire marine food web.
If there is less plankton available, animals that eat plankton, like turtles or fish, will also decrease in numbers. If turtles and fish decrease, than apex predators like sharks, tuna, and whales will also see their population be reduced.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch also affects human life: If marine food webs are compromised, fish and other seafood will become less available and more expensive. Plastic contains chemicals such as BPA, or bisphenol A, which can leach out into the water and is suspected to cause environmental and health problems. PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyl, is known to accumulate in plastic, and can accumulate to toxic levels in marine life and in the humans that consume marine life.
- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Solution.
- Did you know the largest landfill in the world is not on the land but in the Pacific Ocean? Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
- The ocean has become a.
- What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? They exist all throughout the ocean, and the Pacific Garbage Patch just.
To clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch would be a. In fact, the Pacific Ocean now hosts the. He cleans the plastic he finds by soaking it for nearly a week in a bleach and hot water solution. Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Great Ocean Garbage Patch. One passive system could theoretically remove about half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in. The Ocean Cleanup uses solid.
Potential Solutions. Though scientists have studied the Great Pacific Garbage Patch extensively, they have discovered few workable solutions for cleaning up the patch. Because the patch is so large and exists so far from shore, no country has stepped up to tackle the enormous and costly task of removing the debris. The Pacific is too deep to trawl and nets small enough to capture debris would unintentionally capture marine life as well.
Scientists agree that the best solution to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is to reduce usage of non- biodegradable plastics and to encourage the use of biodegradable and reusable materials. Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Smithsonian Ocean Portal. Ocean Trash Plaguing Our Sea.
The Great pacific garbage patch. How can the issue be resolved? Over the years many experts have thought it impossible to resolve the growing problem of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, however through some prevention techniques and an award- winning invention, the probability of cleaning up the patch is looking likely. The first step to resolving the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is to clean it up. This has been thought to be impossible, as it was predicted that it would take 6.
Along with this, “Charles Moore, the man who discovered the vortex, says cleaning up the garbage patch would “bankrupt any country that tried it”. However, when 1. 9 year old Boyan Slat came across the garbage patch when diving, he was inspired to create a model called the Marine Litter Extraction System. His concept included spanning solid booms between vessels in the ocean to extract the layer of micro- plastics floating on the surface. Boyan’s concept included fixing the vessels to the sea- bed and letting the currents of the gyre move the vessels. He supports this with the statement: “The oceanic currents moving around is not an obstacle, it’s a solution.” (Slat, 2. Boyan Slat has set up a project called The Ocean Cleanup to test and fund his concept, fortunately it has proved feasible and environmentally safe; eliminating by- catch by 9. Boyan predicts that with the use of 2.
However, if this project is successful the only way to ensure it’s impact remains is to prevent more garbage from littering the ocean. We can take any number of steps to keep it from entering the ocean and that can happen at the highest level with governments and it can happen at the lowest level (with) individuals and everyday choices.” (Parker, 2.
The next step to resolving the garbage patch is prevention from garbage entering the ocean. The first thing to be done is to bring “.