The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - A Primer

By: Michael Arms

In recent months, media outlets and some celebrities have turned the spotlight on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Last August, a team of scientists, oceanographers, researchers, and ocean-lovers set sail in an expedition, known as the Project Kaisei, to the area to find out more about the severity of this threat to the ocean ecosystem.


What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

The Great Pacific Patch is a large swath of the ocean, estimated to be twice the size of Texas containing as much as 100 million tons of plastic garbage. In 1997, Captain Charles Moore, a California-based sea captain discovered the area, while passing through on his way home from a sailing race in Asia. The documentation and samples brought back by the researchers of Project Kaisei confirmed our worst fears - the area is much larger than was originally thought, it is filled with so much debris, and it is growing.


How was it formed?

The plastic now trapped in the patch have accumulated gradually through several decades from debris thrown or washed to the sea from the surrounding coastlines and from passing ships. This is garbage coming from every country in the northern Pacific basin from North America to east Asia to Australia. The garbage is drawn to what is known as the Northern Pacific Gyre, a system of currents in the northern Pacific, forced into the center of the huge vortex, and trapped there by the peripheral circulating currents.


Why should we be concerned?

Recently, a documentary film featuring Sigourney Weaver, explained the gradual acidification of the oceans from uncontrolled carbon dioxide emissions. It is estimated that by 2100, if the trend continues, the oceans' acidity will be twice that of the pre-industrial era, effectively killing much of the marine organisms that form the base of our food chain. The plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is doing that already. It is estimated that a million organisms die each day from ingesting the minute fragments of plastic floating around in this lethal soup. The toxins released by the decaying plastics are also ingested by these organisms that are served on our dinner tables - the plastic we carelessly threw away has come back to us through the food that we eat!


What can we do?

One of the tasks of the Kaisei scientific expedition was to determine the viability of extracting the plastic from this area for commercial recycling. Until that is possible, it would be too expensive for any one country to undertake the clean up of this veritable mess. What could be done at present is to try and reduce, if not stop altogether, the flow of garbage that gets added to the patch each year. We need strict solid waste disposal policies to prevent more garbage from spilling into the ocean. More and more cities are now banning completely the use of plastic bags and polystyrene containers, and this is an important step.

On the individual level, we can intensify recycling and reduce, if not eliminate, our purchases of plastic. BYOB - "Bring Your Own Bag" - is not just a catchy slogan but a significant factor that would greatly help the ocean - if we all do it.


Out of sight, out of mind. That's the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for most of us. But it is real - as real as the plastic keyboard in front of you right now - it is out there growing by the day from all the garbage we throw away so heedlessly.

Time to put a stop to this killing of our ocean. Let's all do our part.

Michael Arms writes about recycling and other environmental topics for the Pacebutler Recycling Blog. Pacebutler Corporation is a cell phone recycling and trading company - you can sell, recycle, or donate cell phones to your preferred non-profit, through Pacebutler.

Article Source:
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - A Primer
ArticleCat.com

Recycling Facts - A Short Introduction

Guest Post by: Michael Arms of Pacebutler Corporation

The US Environmental Protection Agency characterizes recycling as the "sorting, collecting, and processing materials to manufacture and sell them as new products." In a world confronted by sundry environmental issues like pollution and climate change, largely of our own making, recycling is one sure method to help cleanse the environment and prevent more trash from being piled up in our landfills and worse, in the world's oceans. Being apathetic is not a choice. Below are some recycling facts to help us put in proper focus just how essential recycling is.

Recycling saves energy and resources by trimming down the need for fresh material for manufacturing. It also helps to preserve the environment by reducing solid waste and pollution. It limits the discharge of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by lowering the burning of refuse and the burning of fossil fuel for production.


Recycling facts about plastic

Plastic, an invention of our current profligate society, was previously praised as a revolutionary breakthrough - it even bagged a medal in the World's Fair in London in 1862. It's strong, light, and pliant. Unfortunately, over time, it is this very sturdiness of plastic that has appeared to be an environmental tragedy for us. A hunk of plastic cast off today takes forever to disintegrate, it will endure for at least 500 years before total deterioration.

Envion, a company from Washington D.C., in the U.S., just the other week opened a new plant that's claimed to transform plastic waste into a fuel component. If this is accurate, it could emerge to be the solution to the environment's plastic pollution headache. With this application, it will become sustainable for industrialists to excavate waste dumps and the oceans for plastic to meet the industries' escalating need for more fuel and energy.

We utilize and throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour! Recycling just 26 of these bottles could produce one polyester suit!

Recently, a number of news organizations and prominent personalities have been focusing on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's estimated to be twice the size of the state of Texas and contains as much as 100 million tons of plastic debris. Due to the action of the sun and sea water, the plastic in the ocean is breaking down into shard-like pieces and are devoured by fish and other marine organisms, which we eat - the plastic we nonchalantly scrapped has come back by way of the food chain to haunt us all.


Recycling facts about paper

Thanks to the Computer Age, old-style dailies are now using less paper to print their Sunday editions. As progressively more readers go to the internet to get the news, venerable franchises like The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle are now obligated to publish online sites or risk becoming insignificant.

To produce one weekend issue of every broadsheet in the United States, half a million trees were cut down for their pulp to manufacture all that paper. In America, 85,000,000 tons of paper are discarded every year - that's equal to 680 lbs. for every person in this country.

If you have a computer in your house wired to the internet, please cancel ALL subscriptions to hard copy version of your daily or favorite glossy. If only 10 percent of newspapers read and discarded in the US is turned in for recycling, that's tantamount to saving 25 million trees per year.


Recycling facts about metal

Have you seen the YouTube film showing aluminum cans? It's astounding how we squander this precious material by failing to recycle it. The volume of aluminum containers we waste yearly is estimated to be large enough to reproduce all the commercial aircraft in this country three times a year!

Yearly, we go through approximately 80 billion units of aluminum beverage containers, and most of these are dumped in our landfills.

Recycling a single aluminum beverage container is equal to storing electricity that's enough to light up a 100-watt bulb for twenty hours, run a laptop for 3 hours, or watch your favorite TV show for 3 hours.


You can find out more recycling facts on the internet and at school. You may also talk to your city's waste management officer to gather more specific recycling numbers. Recycling is in truth a crucial component in our collective aspiration to defend the environment and make our world a safer and beautiful place to live in. Let's recycle.

Michael Arms writes about recycling facts and other environmental and clean energy topics for the Pacebutler Recycling Blog. Pacebutler Corporation is a U.S. cell phone trading company - you may sell, recycle, or donate cell phones to your favorite charity through Pacebutler.