In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii, there is a floating heap of debris the size of a continent!
In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.
The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.
Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years.
"With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping," Eriksen said. "There's nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm."
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.
Link - Thanks Aar000n! (Photo: Kat Wade / Chronicle)
Comments (26)
You know how much data it would take to have every inch of the ocean mapped on Google Earth?! Way too much.
If anyone wants to prove me wrong, I dare anyone to get anyone currently floating around in the SPACE STATION to video tape such a huge thing. If it really is twice the size of Texas, then they should be able to spot it quite easily.
Note: It is not up to ME to prove to everyone this story is false. It is up to Justin Berton to prove to everyone this story is true.
Oh, and Alex, Brooks Brothers is America's oldest men's clothier.
I don't think it's a solid mass of trash, and that's why you won't see it from space. I've heard that it's basically a lot of trash spread out over that area.
I too have my doubts about the size of it. I'm guessing it's somewhere around the size of Texas at max. This didn't just come out of no where, so there's something out there.
"Some sources [Neatorama!] have incorrectly reported that there is a "floating continent" of debris that is roughly twice the size of Texas, however no scientific investigation [...] has verified this"
"In samples taken from the gyre in 2001, the mass of [biodegrading] plastic exceeded that of zooplankton by a factor of six"
And an intersting movie.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3892310789953943147
(really starts @5:00)
Texas is relatively small compared to the entire East-half of the Pacific Ocean -
and you're forgetting one thing: DEPTH.
Maybe with the rising price of oil, it will one day be profitable to clean it up and recycle it. And it might take that long till someone does it too.
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans/ocean_pollution_animation
If anything, there may be a section of the Pacific which has a higher than normal amount of debris.
Its stories like these that are turning people off of the "green movement". Environmentalists' hyperbole is just like the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Ooooo! They've got an "animation" of it! Well gee, that makes it true then!
Oh hey, I've just found an "animation" of Greenpeace leaders clubbing baby seals for their blubber! That means it's true too, right?
Krimmeny people, do some research before you make up your mind. The article gives you a great place to start, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation webpage perhaps?
http://www.algalita.org/
The plastic doesn't have to be surficial to be there.
http://www.algalita.org/pelagic_plastic_mov.html
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=32055783
All you people are all so negitive, jesus christ you piss me off especially SoftwareSamurai
http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
Below is the first paragraph from that page.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Eastern Garbage Patch or the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N and estimated to be twice the size of Texas.[1] The patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of suspended plastic and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography because it consists of very small pieces, almost invisible to the naked eye [2] and most of its contents are suspended beneath the surface of the ocean. [3]