ende !

Take Part in RESET

Login with Facebook
Login/Register

Username

Password

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to
prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image? *

Enter the characters shown in the image.

LOG IN

Not registered yet?

Forgot login data?

RESET.org

Digital for Good

Search this site

HOME / BIODIVERSITY / KNOWLEDGE / PLASTIC OCEAN - THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH

Plastic Ocean - The Great Pacific Garbage

Patch

We produce huge amounts of waste every day - a lot of it plastic. Only a tiny portion is ever
recycled, and the rest takes years and years to break down, ending up in landfill or polluting
oceans and beaches, with serious consequences for our seas and the life within them.

The world’s oceans are being misused as a veritable dumping ground. Scientists estimate that
anywhere between 8 and 12 million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans every year,
that’s the equivalent of a whole rubbish truck full every single minute. And it’s not just directly
dumped waste that is the problem - any kind of plastic waste we produce could end up in the
sea at some point in its long life. Around 80 per cent of marine pollution is thought to come
from land-based sources, most of it plastic litter like bottles, bags and plastic packaging. The
rest is plastics and other materials released or lost at sea, such as fishing gear, nets and ropes.

Carried by the natural currents of the oceans, large amounts of this plastic debris has collected
together in the North Pacific Ocean, forming a huge mass of floating waste known as the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch or the Pacific Trash Vortex. It’s the result of decades of superfluous
plastic production and a shocking symbol of failed waste infrastrucutre and our throwaway
culture.
What is plastic?
Plastic is a general term for a variety of different synthetic or synthetic products that are
usually derived from the hydrocarbons found in natural gas, oil and coal. The carbon
compounds, also known as synthetic polymers, that are created from these raw materials, are
then mixed with other additives in order to processed to create plastics by the addition of all
kinds of other additives, depending on the specific requirements of the end product.

Many everyday products are made - at least in part - of plastic. The most commonly used plastic
base is currently polyethylene. It’s durable and can be formed into all kinds of different shapes,
which is why its so popular and used in so many different ways – including in plastic drinks
bottles, shopping bags, food packaging and even polar fleeces - before (often after being used
just once), it ends up being discarded.

Plastics are incredible durable and break down extremely slowly - so slowly, in fact, that there is
little first-hand evidence of their decomposition rate (because they simply haven’t been around
long enough yet) and scientists are forced to make educated guesses (up to 500 years for
plastic bags!)

While plastics don’t biodegrade like organic debris would, they do photodegrade, meaning they
break down when exposed to UV rays, into smaller and smaller pieces. In 2009, Japanese
researchers found that when in warm ocean water and exposed to friction and sunlight, plastics
degrade even faster than first thought. This might sound good at first, but the
photodegradation process releases the additives that plastics contain, such as bisphenol A
(BPA) and polystyrene (PS) oligomer, which are thought to have detrimental effects on animal
and human health.
©

And unlike organic waste which biodegrades, plastics remain a polymer and simply disintegrate
into ever smaller pieces. The majority of the plastic waste in the sea is thought to be in the form
of these tiny microplastic (meaning any plastic piece less than 5mm in diameter) particles. The
2017 United Nations Clean Seas Campaign estimated that there are 51 trillion microplastic
particles in our oceans today—500 times more than the number of stars in our galaxy.

Plastic on Land = Plastic in the Sea

Plastic is almost impossible to escape in everyday life, with most of us surrounded by it all day
long. From the keyboard you’re typing on, or the smartphone in your hand, it’s almost
impossible to avoid. We’ve produced roughly 8.3 billion metric tonnes of plastic produced over
the past 70 years, and almost 80 per cent of it has been discarded into landfill or the
environment, including the ocean. And because it can take several hundreds of years for plastic
to break down, there’s a chance that any plastic product used - if not recycled or disposed of
responsibly - will end its life carried by rivers and the wind and ending up in the sea, even if it
was originally thrown onto a rubbish dump far away from the coast. One study published in
Science in 2015 suggests that as much as 8 million metric tons (8.8 million short tons) of plastic
wound up in the ocean in 2010 alone, that’s five plastic bags filled with plastic for every foot of
coastline in the world.

And we often release plastic particles into the environment without realising it too - we wash
microplastics down the drain each time we wash our clothes made of synthetic fabrics, when
we use harsh chemical cleaners, and by using everyday cosmetics and toothpastes (which often
contain microbeads). Traditional sewage plants can’t catch these miniscule plastic pieces and
fibres, meaning they eventually end up in rivers, lakes and oceans.

Where Does the Plastic Waste Come From?

A study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology in 2017 suggested that
more than 90 per cent of all the plastic that ends up in the oceans originates in just 10 river
systems in heavily populated areas where littering is common. China is thought to be
responsible for the most ocean plastic pollution per year, followed by Indonesia, the
Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria and Bangladesh. Densely
populated countries with ineffective waste management infrastructure and collection systems
that can’t keep up with economic growth and growing consumption of plastics.

What the report failed to mention, however, is that many developed countries such as the
United States export plastic waste - to these very countries. China imported over 7 million tons
of plastic scrap in 2016, more than half of all the plastic waste that was globally. (In many of
these countries, people—including children—become “waste pickers,” sorting through rivers of
plastic trash to find pieces to sell while polluted waterways transport the remainder straight
out to sea. ) With the Chinese government is now cracking down on plastic imports, the US and
Europe is seeing waste pile up at its ports.

Ocean plastic is not just an environmental, but also a social justice issue.

Where Does It End Up?

Carried by the wind and ocean currents, plastic waste often ends up far from the place where it
was first discarded. Whole beaches - even on uninhabited islands far away from any signs of
civilisation - are already classified as Plastic Beaches, because of the huge amounts of plastic
waste that ends up there as a result of ocean currents. In 2017, 38 million pieces of plastic were
found on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. Henderson Island was found to be covered
by 18 tonnes of plastic – the highest density of anthropogenic debris ever recorded anywhere
in the world.

Comprehensive statistics and research about ocean plastic (location, type and amount) is hard
to come by, with exact scientific data tied up in different papers and journals. The online portal
Litterbase is a super visual compilation of information informed by 1,267 different scientific
studies, carefully set out in comprehensible global maps and simple charts, consistently fed
with new information and completely accessible to the public.

Another great source of information is Adrift. Their ocean-based system collects information
from floating buoys which follow the currents just like plastic does and relay information every
six hours about where they are and the conditions in that location. Using that data, the team
generates a representation of the likely path of the rubbish in each area, enabling them to
project where and how patches of garbage and debris will travel over the course of a ten year
period. It's a fascinating yet stark look at just how much wide-reaching an impact our rubbish
can have when it's washed out to sea from the coastline.

Plastic Soup and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

As well as ending up as unsightly waste on beaches, plastic pollution in the oceans is carried and
gathered together by ocean currents, in certain places coming together to form gyres full of
plastic, chemical sludge and other debris, known as “plastic islands”. The reason for this is the
natural system of ocean currents that cover the world and regulate the transfer of warmth
between the oceanic regions. These currents naturally form huge gyres and when plastic
passes through it gets trapped.

The biggest one is known as the Great Pacific garbage patch, or the Pacific trash vortex. It’s
located in the central North Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California and is thought to
have been discovered by Charles Moore, an oceanographer, when sailing through the rarely-
visited area on the way back from a sailing competition. He wrote in Natural History magazine:

“As I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was
confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic. It seemed unbelievable but
I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what
time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere – bottles, bottle caps,
wrappers, fragments.”

Estimates vary about the size of this plastic island - it depends on the degree of plastic
concentration used to define the affected area exact size of these plastic islands, and the
borders and content constantly change with the ocean currents and the wind. The name
“island” is in fact very misleading - because the patches are so low density and many of the
plastic particles trapped inside are incredibly small and under the surface of the water, meaning
they’re invisible from aeroplane or satellite. The trm “plastic soup” would be more appropriate.

Recent research suggests that the heart of it is a massive 1 million square kilometres,
surrounded by a 3.5m square kilometre outer periphery. The high-density centre is thought to
have one million pieces of plastic per sq km.

And the Great Pacific garbage patch isn't the only one. It is thought that there are currently five
huge plastic islands that have formed throughout the world: in the North and South Pacific, in
the North and South Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean. This one minute video from 5 Gyres
takes a quick look at them all.
Death by Plastic
Plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than
100,000 marine mammals. Often they end up mistaking the fragments or food, and eating it
themselves or feeding it to their young, then perishing due to a blocked digestive tract or dying
of malnutrition because their stomachs are so full of plastic that they don’t eat enough
nutritious food. Entanglement is another danger, with animals either strangled or trapped by
plastic cords, or caught and suffocated in so-called “ghost nets”, discarded fishing nets that keep
catching fish and other animals even when they can no longer be reeled in.

The trailer for the film Albatross by Chris Jordan shows shocking images of how a remote idyll
and its albatross population is flooded by civilisation trash, with the Midway albatross having
become an iconic image for the tragic impact of plastic pollution.

!"
And it’s not just the plastic itself that is a problem - the other chemicals released into the water
when the plastic breaks down also has a negative impact on the sealife around. In a paper in the
journal Nature, oysters that had consumed microplastics were shown to have fewer and less
healthy offspring. Research also strongly suggests that at certain exposure levels, some of the
chemicals in these products, such as bisphenol A (BPA), may cause cancer and have been linked
to infertility in men.

And with humans consuming contaminated fish and seafood, plastic pollution is certainly a
human health issue too.A 2017 study discovered nylon, polystyrene and polyethylene pieces in
the bodies of different fish that had been sold for human consumption. The scientists warned
that because plastic attracts toxins in the environment, microplastics were providing a medium
to facilitate the transport of other toxic compounds such as heavy metals and organic
pollutants.

What are Governments Doing About it?

One major problem is that the plastic islands are in international waters, meaning that no
government feels directly responsible for the problem. But the issue is becoming ever more
prevalent, and it looks like - on paper at least - there is a move towards trying to find a solution.

In December 2017 nearly 200 countries signed a U.N. resolution to eliminate plastic pollution
in the sea, with countries agreeing to start monitoring the amount of plastic they put into the
ocean and to explore ways to make it illegal to dump waste in the oceans. However, there is
currently no timetable and it is not legally binding.

Additionally, following China’s decision to ban imports of foreign recyclable material, the first-
ever European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy was adopted on January 16, 2018.
It's designed to change minds in Europe, possibly tax damaging behaviour, and modernise
plastics production and collection by investing 350 million EUR in research, hopefually making
all packaging reusable or recyclable by the year 2030.

TAGGE D WI T H

Plastic Ocean
Oceans
ocean plastic
garbage
gyre

RELATED CONTENT

News Oceanic Plastic, Be Gone!

News Keeping Tabs on Plastic in Our Oceans

!# "

News Can 3D Printing Save Sea Turtles?

!#

Act now 7 Quick and Easy Ways to Cut Down on Plastic

News Liter of Light: Turning Plastic Bottles Into Solar Lightbulbs

©

News Litterbase: The Ultimate Map of Ocean Waste and the Damage It
Causes to Marine Life

I support this article

SUPPORT RESET

Share this article

Facebook
Twitter

This knowledge article belongs to

Biodiversity
Preserve species diversity
Knowledge Microplastics: Tiny, Toxic and All Around Us

Knowledge The Privatisation of Seeds

Knowledge Agroforestry and its Benefits

Knowledge Genetically Modified Crops

Knowledge Overfishing

1 of 2
››

Topics

Climate Protection
Energy
Urbanity
Biodiversity
Green New Deal
Green Living
Development
Peace
Chances
 Health
Responsibility

Information & Action

News
Knowledge
Donation Projects
Act Now
Initiatives
Smart Green Innovation
Green Impact Finance

RESET

Resetter
About RESET
RESET News
Supporters
Partners
Team
Contact
Imprint
Privacy policy
Terms of Use

Recognised as “Decade Project” by the UN Decade of Education for

Sustainable Development

"
#
$
"
#