The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

 Have you ever wonder that there is a garbage patch in the ocean that is larger than Texas ? Well there is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) that is continuously floating and growing. 

Graphical illustration of size of the GPGP

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In 1997 this garbage patch was discovered by Charles Moore,  and it is located in between Hawaii and California. The patch is estimated to have an area of 1.6 million square kilometers and the location and area is continuously changing.

Modeled mass concentration of GPGP

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The major component of this garbage patch is the micro plastics that make about 94% of the garbage patch plastic content (in terms of object count) and the total weight of the patch is estimated about 80000 of tons. They have found that 46% mass of the total patch is coming from the abandoned fishing gear.

Content of the GPGP by size classes

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Types of plastics found in GPGP

 Type H: Hard plastic, plastic sheet or film, Type N: Plastic lines, ropes, and fishing nets, Type P: Pre-production plastics (cylinders, spheres or disks), Type F: Fragments made of foamed materials.

Since plastics are persistent, they tend to gather as a patch and then they break into small pieces and then to microplastics which are continuously floating. 

Transfer of plastics through food webs

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These microplastics cause several problems such as they are often mistaken by marine organisms and end up in the marine food webs causing negative ecological effects. Due to bio accumulation of microplastics, they cause problems not only to marine organisms, but also to human as well.

Efforts

There are several efforts focused on Great Pacific Garbage Patch and one of the major effort is 'The Ocean Cleanup' which was launched by Boyan Slat. And now it is a 32 million dollar campaign that is conducting research, trawl expeditions to understand the toxicity, physical properties and plastic data.

Written by: Isuru Umesha

References:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/great-pacific-garbage-patch-plastics-environment

https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/