The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

What is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in the ocean, seas, and other large bodies of water.
• Some disagree with the title of "garbage patch" as they claim it does not paint an accurate picture of the marine debris problem in the North Pacific ocean. Marine debris concentrates in various regions of the North Pacific, not just in one area. The exact size, content, and location of the "garbage patches" are difficult to accurately predict.
• These patches contain a lot of our garbage because ocean currents have moved the waste to accumulate in these areas 
• Much of the debris is actually small pieces of micro plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye.

Why is there plastic in the ocean?

• Human created plastic ends up in the ocean accidentally, on purpose, and by mismanaged waste practices 
• Some waste is from plastics pieces already made to be small: microbeads in face wash can be plastic 
• Some tiny plastic pieces were once larger plastic items which have just broken down to be small 
• “Plastics never really go away. They just break down over and over and over again until they become smaller and smaller from sunlight and other environmental factors [like] waves, big storms, those kind of things."

General Causes of Plastic Waste in Oceans

• Land Based sources 
  • Urban & storm runoff 
  • Sewer overflows 
  • Beach visitors 
  • Inadequate waste disposal & management 
  • Industrial activities 
  • Construction 
  • Illegal dumping 
• Ocean based Sources
  • ​Fishing industry 
  • Nautical activities
  • Aquaculture 

Why is it bad to have plastic waste in oceans?

• Some species of birds & fish eat the plastics because they look like food 
  • There are chemicals in the plastics & these can absorb other chemicals floating around in the ocean while the plastic is in the creature’s stomach, making them more sick 
• Debris found in any region of the ocean can easily be ingested by marine species potentially causing choking, starvation, and other impairments.
• Ocean ecosystems are extremely important to humans due to ecosystem services such as fishing, recreation and medicine. Harming ocean ecosystems is a huge economic and intrinsic loss to humans. 

Why don’t we just clean it up by going by and scooping up all the plastic? 

• These patches aren’t areas you can easily go through and skim trash off the surface 
  • Most of the trash are tiny micro plastics that aren't easily removable from the ocean
• The size of the patches is enormous 
  • It would take 67 ships 1 year to clean up <1% of the trash in the North Pacific Ocean 
• Until we stop human debris entering the oceans at the source, it’s just going to keep congregating in these areas 

So what do we do about all this plastic waste in the oceans?

Downstream

• There are some projects working on cleaning up litter and plastic from the oceans, such as 4Oceans & The Ocean Cleanup

Upstream

• A large amount of the plastic & waste ending up in the oceans is from inadequate waste disposal and management as well as other mismanaged practices 
  • If we reduce the amount of waste we have in the first place, the amount ending of plastics ending up in the ocean will be reduce 
• The US sends some of its trash around the world for other countries to deal with. Many of these countries have much less regulation around waste disposal and it is often mismanaged. If the US had to be responsible for its waste, perhaps less of it would end up in the oceans.