Unveiling the mysteries of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- Sammy Fernandes
- Dec 1, 2020
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 15, 2020
SANTA MONICA, CA – Most of humanity’s plastic waste ends up accumulated in five ocean garbage patches. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between California and Hawaii, has the largest accumulation of plastic in the world, with about two trillion pieces of plastic floating around the ocean gyre. With the current plastic consumption and the fact it takes more than 400 years to degrade, the prediction is that, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
Photo Credit: The Los Angeles Times
Although the Amazon Rainforest is known as the “lungs” of Earth, in reality, oceans are the real “lungs” since they generate most of the oxygen humans breathe on Earth. According to the Associated Press, the Amazon absorbs about the same amount of oxygen it produces, whereas in the ocean, “phytoplanktons have contributed to breathable oxygen through photosynthesis for millions of years.”
Humans are so indoctrinated in a consumer society that most material things they buy have useless plastic protection in it, such as plastic protection in fruits even though the fruit peel is the protection itself. According to the National Geographic, the rapid acceleration of plastic production surpassed nearly every other man-made material, and half of all plastic produced becomes trash in less than a year.
When a product is considered useless, people throw it in the trash-can and their worries of having it occupying space in their homes goes away. But the plastic product does not vanish forever after the trash-can is sealed.
As the Science Daily reports, mass production of plastics increased in less than 100 years from two million metric tons in 1950 to over 400 million metric tons in 2015. Its production has accelerated so rapidly that it has created over eight billion metric tons of plastic in the world — out of that, over six billion metric tons became plastic waste.
Holly Wyer, Marine Pollution Program Manager of the Ocean Protection Council, said there are a lot of myths about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
“In terms of what feeds into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, there’s been some recent work done on worldwide inputs of plastic pollution into the ocean,” Wyer said. “One of the things that was found is that a lot of the inputs are coming from these rapid developing economies, in places where they don’t necessarily have waste infrastructure yet.”
Wyer said the countries in Southeast Asia, including China, are the ones that are contributing the most to the pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. However, even though the United States isn't contributing as much, the country is still in the “Top 20” contributors worldwide, she said.
“One thing that I like to make clear about this is that there is a difference between solving the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and solving the trash in California’s beaches, because the trash in California’s beaches comes from California,” Wyer said. “That’s not coming here from other places. That’s our trash, and that's our problem.”
Photo Credit: The Ocean Clean Up
The physical threat of plastic consumption is that marine debris alters the marine ecosystem through animal ingestion, since they look and smell like food. According to environmental entrepreneur Boyan Slat’s TED Talk, there is not much red plastic at beaches because that is the color animals confuse the most with food. The plastic smell is similar to the stinky smell of algae breaking down in the ocean, emitting an odor called dimethyl sulfide. Thus, since seaweed are eaten by krill, a small crustacean and primary food source of seabirds, when seabirds are in hunt of krill, they can be mistakenly lead to the source of plastic instead.
As animals ingest these substances passed on through the aquatic food web, bioaccumulation accumulates at trophic levels of the food chain, thus affecting humans’ health and creating a chemical threat. The bioaccumulation of toxic chemical ingredients of plastic are called Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic Substances (PBTs).
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 90% of the plastics in the open sea are microplastics, meaning they are less than five millimeters in diameter. Microplastics form from the fragmentation of larger plastics as they break down from ultraviolet rays, wind, and wave action. As they resist degradation and become smaller, they break down into more numerous particles without substantial chemical degradation.
As animals ingest these substances passed on through the aquatic food web, bioaccumulation accumulates at trophic levels of the food chain, thus affecting humans’ health since the sea animals that ate plastic debris will later be eaten by humans and end up in humans’ bodies. According to the Washington Post, Americans have ingested at least 74,000 microplastic particles every year by eating, drinking, and simply breathing.
Ocean plastic pollution also causes coral reefs, the primary source of the aquatic animal food chain, to die. According to the National Public Radio, plastics that get into contact with the coral reefs abrade and create new openings, allowing bacteria, invasive species, and other harmful microorganisms from the ocean to reach the coral. When plastics reach the corals, the likelihood of disease increases from four to 89%.
Looking at the Asia-Pacific Ocean alone, which is home to over half of the world’s coral reefs, over 11 billion plastic items can already be entangled in coral reefs. The death of coral reefs will then collapse the food chain and provoke an economic disaster for tourism, fisheries, and fish farms. What happens deep down the ocean reflects on the land, as the wealth of the coastal city can be measured by the health of its coral reefs.
To tackle the ocean plastic pollution crisis, the Ocean Clean Up non-profit engineering environmental organization develops technology to remove plastics from the oceans and intercept it in rivers before it can reach the oceans. Based in the Netherlands and founded in 2013 by Dutch inventor and entrepreneur Boyan Slat, its goal is to close the source, which is the river, and clean up what has already accumulated in the oceans.
Hawaii Resident Jillian Saxman has been following Slat’s work for a couple of years now.
“I remember hearing the story and being interested: A young man who was told that his high school project was junk by a teacher and now he’s cleaning the world. I thought, ‘Wow, that is profound,’” Saxman said.
The boat, named the Interceptor, extracts plastic in the majority of the world’s most polluting rivers. The way it functions is, the plastics flowing with the river currents will encounter a barrier positioned across the river from the Interceptor. That barrier guides the plastics to the “mouth” of the boat, where the conveyor belt removes it out of the water to dump on six big dumpsters on the boat. The Interceptor does that autonomously, with no humans needed to be on the boat, and is powered by the sunlight and solar panels. When the dumpsters are full, they are emptied by humans and the plastics are taken to recycling centers and waste management facilities.
Using its technology, the Ocean Clean Up estimates to remove, in five years, 50% of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and tackle the one-thousand most polluting rivers of the world. To do so, they have been working with government leaders, individuals, and private corporations.
For the first time in history, they are selling a pair of sunglasses made from plastics collected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The product costs $199 and 100% of the proceeds go towards the continuation of the cleanup. With the goal to create a sustainable planet, its marketing initiative allows citizens to feel part of a massive cleanup in history, and Saxman is one of them.
Saxman bought the sunglasses with hopes that reusing waste will repair the mess that humanity has done in the world.
“It’s a shame,” Saxman said. “It’s disgusting. I feel responsible for contributing to it [ocean plastic pollution] as a human being.”
For more information on the Ocean Clean Up initiative, visit their website.
Written by Sammy Fernandes
Instagram/Twitter: @sammyfernandes_
Contributions: Associated Press, National Geographic, Science Daily, Boyan Slat’s TED Talk, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington Post, National Public Radio, The Ocean Clean Up.
Photo Credit: The Los Angeles Times, The Ocean Clean Up
Audio Credit: Sammy Fernandes via SoundCloud
Video Credit: CNN, Sammy Fernandes
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