Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The size of Australia’s West Coast, a 70,000 square kilometer continent of plastic debris known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" and "Pacific Trash Vortex" floats in a sinister swirling gyre between San Francisco and Hawaii. What is it? Can it be stopped?

By Paul Oscar Hamilton, Senior Editor

An ever expanding floating hodge podge of plastics and trash called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch poses an unrivalled ecological threat.

A Greenpeace report states 80 percent of the oceans' litter originated on land. As rogue garbage floats into Australia’s storm drains that eventually lead to the ocean, can we expect similar problems? The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, Public Education Program Manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco, California, USA.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is especially dangerous for wildlife. The rubbish vortex is mistaken for a feeding ground by birds and plastic bags are ingested by sea turtles who think they’ve lucked into a flotilla of tasty jelly fish. The Greenpeace report found that at least 267 marine species had suffered from some kind of ingestion or entanglement with marine debris. This Neptune nightmare also acts as a chemical sponge, sucking up pollutants and concentrating their ill-effects.

How do we best end our growing reliance on plastics? Using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of plastic bags is a good first step; buying foods that aren't wrapped in plastics another. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors tried banning the use of plastic grocery bags  and has stopped restaurants from using Styrofoam for takeaway.

Some stores give a credit for shoppers who bring in their own bags, or don’t impose a surchare. The key to many of these initiatives was grassroots support and new legislation. Industry lobbyists are the biggest obstacle to such changes but the public has been very receptive.

Who will clean this mess up? No one country is likely to claim responsibility. Can we ban plastic fast food packaging? Or require the substitution of biodegradable materials, increase recycling programs and improve enforcement of litter laws?

You can start by taking your trash with you when you leave the beach. And maybe someone else’s.

>>Manly Environment Centre



Source: Greenpeace "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans."

Our thanks to Chris Parry whose dedication to educating the public is now gaining world-wide attention.