A Trip To The Garbage Patch

In the December 5 Issue:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Climate might be right for a deal: Copenhagen negotiations will take steps toward a climate-stabilizing treaty
Botanical Whales: Adventures in the Tortugas reveal that seagrass fields need saving too
Breaking the Speed Limit: Studies examine physiology and technology to better foresee the ultimate edge of human performance

A trip to the garbage patch

Scientists bring back debris samples from the North Pacific subtropical convergence zone

By Rachel Ehrenberg

Web edition : Thursday, August 27th, 2009

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Trashy sample Scientists deploy a manta net to sample surface waters in the north Pacific Ocean (left). The team also encountered masses of debris, such as this net tangled with rope, plastic and various marine creatures.Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

Scientists are talking trash after returning from a 20-day expedition to an oceanic garbage patch some thousand miles off the California coast. Debris is thought to accumulate in the region, known as the North Pacific subtropical convergence zone, thanks to winds and the flow of four major oceanic currents. Scientists are concerned about the debris’ potential effects on marine life.

To determine the scope of the problem, a team of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego took a 1,360-mile journey to survey marine litter and life in a corner of the patch.

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Living on plastic Fish larvae grow on this large piece of plastic, found on day four of the expedition. Researchers will analyze the collected detritus to determine effects on marine life.Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

“We did observe a lot of plastic,” Miriam Goldstein, chief scientist of the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition, said at a press conference August 27. Though the site is a thousand miles from anything, thumbnail-sized pieces of plastic made up most of the collected debris.

Now that the researchers have brought in the trash, they plan to probe the potential impacts of this debris. Marine ecologists, geochemists, material scientists and other “-ists” will try to understand how the debris affects critters such as plankton, fish and birds. They also hope to learn how the junk is distributed in the water column and whether the floating plastics transport pollutants and invasive species. “We have a lot of work to do before we can say what the impact is on marine life,” Goldstein said.

Found in: Earth, Life and Science & Society

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Comments 3

The garbage dump in the Pacific ocean is absolutely disgusting and sad. Glad that it is being studied, but sad that it is there in the first place. What a horror.

Mouli Cohen

Aug. 30, 2009 at 12:45pm
This initial investigation into a "corner" of the so-called patch must inevitably lead to a more comprehensive scientific survey of what's out there. One fervently hopes that these studies don't just determine how deleterious this trash patch is to the marine environment (and how long it's been there without anybody managing to call public attention to it until this year, which seems to me a major failure all its own) but determining how this is to be cleaned up.

If the fishing industry has successfully learned to drag miles-long nets through the water to catch fish (and much besides) then we ought to be able to think up ways to skim the surface of floating debris of a certain size before it breaks down into smaller pieces.

Those nations most responsible for the garbage should foot the bill: it's THEIR garbage (and a forensic analysis of the contents of the "patch" ought easily to determine the countries of origin). It's - all of it - OUR garbage.

Every nation that has a river that empties into the ocean or dumps garbage and other waste into the sea ought to be held to account.

And anybody aboard ships at sea (from the smallest fishing vessels to tankers) who throw trash conveniently and indiscriminantly overboard should be held accountable (along with their nations of origin) to strict and forceful international laws that forbid that heinous habit.

If nothing else, those countries which feast on fishing industries with an efficiency of less than 20% (all the rest gone to waste or, at best, as "fertilizer") ought to be strongly educated to the fact that their resource is dying.

The alternative is to leave it all alone and sit back eating fresh sushi or calimari (out of a yield only a fifth or a tenth of the amount ultimately wasted) - munching happily away as we watch our oceans turn into a putrid sewer full of death. Where will the fishing industry be then?

I shall not bother to characterize my contempt for wealthy Japanese and Icelandic whaling interests. This forum is far above that sort of necessity, isn't it?

Adolf Schaller

Aug. 30, 2009 at 2:23pm
Yeah, right on target. All you mad scientist are so far out in left field you can't see the in-field. Take mother nature to court. After all she is responsible for the host of tsunami's, hurricane's and typhoon's that drag that debris into the ocean from coastal towns and sink ships and boats at sea. Moron's unite! People are listening.

william cesarano

Aug. 31, 2009 at 9:48am