The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
tags:
Stumble ThisThe Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Good Morning America
"The Pacific Ocean has more White Trash than Texas" - Bill Maher.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Eastern Garbage Patch or the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine debris in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N. 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
"The Pacific Ocean has more White Trash than Texas" - Bill Maher.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Eastern Garbage Patch or the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine debris in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N. 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
Who's saying? The same "There's no proof that global warming is man made" people?
Would someone please slap some common sense into anyone that thinks that eating big chunks of plastic is good for any kind of wildlife?
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Maher-New-Rules-April-2rd-2009
See more of what Captain Charles Moore (interviewed) had to say about it:
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Seas-of-Plastic
Please AQUAMAN!! We need you!!
To me it's not clear how this garbage actually leaves the dumps and ends in the ocean. It's not just stuff left on the beach that's pulled by the waves. It's not just stuff thrown overboard by seamen. It must be transported and conveniently dumped in the ocean while no one is looking. Probably the cheapest way to get rid of garbage, and it's been going on a large scale for decades. Ships travel between Asia and America with marchandise on one way, and have to be filled with something on their return. I wonder if half of all the plastic bottles sent to China for recycling ever get there.
Please AQUAMAN!! We need you!!
A lot of it is litter, stuff that gets thrown on the street, that is washed into storm sewers, and then into rivers and out to the ocean. But because the plastic isn't bio-degradable it just lingers and accumulates, some of it has been out there for decades drifting in the current.
>> ^ravioli:
To me it's not clear how this garbage actually leaves the dumps and ends in the ocean. It's not just stuff left on the beach that's pulled by the waves. It's not just stuff thrown overboard by seamen. It must be transported and conveniently dumped in the ocean while no one is looking. Probably the cheapest way to get rid of garbage, and it's been going on a large scale for decades. Ships travel between Asia and America with marchandise on one way, and have to be filled with something on their return. I wonder if half of all the plastic bottles sent to China for recycling ever get there.
Please AQUAMAN!! We need you!!
We also took huge recycling cargo bins filled with tons and tons of plastic meant for recycling, and we dumped it in the sea instead. Before we did that, however, we sifted through all the recyclable garbage and pulled all the plastic six pack rings and artfully tied bread crumbs to them before tossing them to the seagulls.
We also raped children and puppies. No, but some of this is true.
"About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land." ...
also, "Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere"...
I'm surprised a certain fungally named sifter hasn't shown up to tell us this is just a "leftist" propaganda film.
Kerry's not talking about it so to him it's neutral.
>> ^blankfist:
In the Navy, we used to dump five gallon paint cans (filled with paint sometimes) into the ocean and told to watch out for Grean Peace. In fact, every naval ship throws (or used to throw) their garbage overboard. When we were done doing all that, we also pissed into the water to let Mother Nature know who was boss.
We also took huge recycling cargo bins filled with tons and tons of plastic meant for recycling, and we dumped it in the sea instead. Before we did that, however, we sifted through all the recyclable garbage and pulled all the plastic six pack rings and artfully tied bread crumbs to them before tossing them to the seagulls.
We also raped children and puppies. No, but some of this is true.
"There's no proof, they're saying, that it would kill the birds"..........
Who's saying? The same "There's no proof that global warming is man made" people?
Would someone please slap some common sense into anyone that thinks that eating big chunks of plastic is good for any kind of wildlife?
You can eat plastic. It just goes through your system. No digestion occurs, so no toxins will enter your system. Of course, you could choke on it... P.S. I'm a biologist.
Anyway, this whole thing is ironic since people have been touting the values of plastic over paper for years now. Save the trees and all that. If all that trash were paper, it'd be gone long before it got out that far into the ocean. I vote: tree farms, tree farms, tree farms.
"I don't see why people are so friggin shocked. Where do you think the garbage of the world goes? If we're not burying it and building cities over the landfills it's being dropped in rivers, lakes and oceans."
We have a tremendously huge amount of space for landfills... profound amounts of space. The paranoia of the 80's about trash and landfills has been debunked as a child of media hype and activist exaggeration. In addition, we now harvest methane from landfills. When they get "full", they are buried and these fills are managed by people who aren't moronic enough to dump... say... radioactive waste or anything to unsafe that might end up in the water table. Of course, we should fullfill the 3 R's as we were taught. Reduce, reuse, recycle... but we shouldn't sacrifice our reason. Penn and Teller gave a good shake to recycling on their show. I recommend it.
Another solution would be to genetically engineer a bacterium that's efficiently eats plastic. We'd need to make sure that it could only survive in salty water otherwise it might start eating all the land based plastic that's actually used.
"There's no proof that global warming is man made"
Yeah, there isn't. Why are you acting so sure about it?
The same people complaining about global warming are the same people who are dumping their crap in the ocean.
one question, it doesnt biodegrade? okay, and it breaks up into little pieces? got it. Which hang around for decades? fine.
But then what happens after the decades?
Do they turn into those sea people or what?
Ugh freaking eck.
one question, it doesnt biodegrade? okay, and it breaks up into little pieces? got it. Which hang around for decades? fine.
But then what happens after the decades?
Do they turn into those sea people or what?
I don't know why they said it like that, maybe because the plastic molecules stay around for so long, but a typical plastic bottle a little less than half a millennium to biodegrade.
We use some of the Oil.
We put some of the oil, in the form of Plastic, back into the ground and oceans for future generations.
It's like reforestation, Doing our part to ensure a future for our children's children...