Pacific Gyre trawl sample (Algalita)

This is a test. This test wil be about Algalita and Charles Moore and the Pacific Garbage Patch.

There have been many news stories lately about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (even Oprah talked about it.  See The Huffington Post Blog.)

The patch is also called the Pacific Gyre.  The first I heard about it was in the book “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman.  He talks about how the U.S. Navy corroborated an early 90’s estimate of over 3 million tons of plastic swirling around in the Pacific Gyre. That was over 10 years ago. All this plastic has appeared in barely more than 50 years. (An oceanic gyre is a large, slowly swirling vortex caused by wind and ocean currents.)  By the way, it’s not like you see piles and piles of large plastic items (although there are some) floating in the gyre.  Much of the plastic has broken up into small pieces which float both on and just below the surface.

Photo from samples taken by Captain Charles Moore aboard the Algalita

These small particulates of plastic are unfortunately mistaken for food by fish, mammals and sea birds.

Photo From Algalita Marine Research Foundation

“By 2005, the size of the gyrating Pacific dump was estimated to be as much 10 million square miles–nearly the size of Africa. And it’s not the only one: the planet has six other major tropical oceanic gyres all of them swirling with ugly debris.” (Excerpt from chapter 9 of Weisman’s book.)

Further studies continue, like the upcoming Summer 2009 plastic debris research project by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and others.  But the bottom line for each of us as consumers is to reduce our use of plastics where possible.

When given the choice at the store or on-line, take into consideration the packaging when comparing two similar products.  By buying the product with less packing (usually plastic is involved), we indirectly support a more conscious effort on the part of the supplier to move towards sustainablility.

Make consumer choices...it's like voting

The other day for example, I stopped buying my favorite bandage brand and switched to another brand because the manufacture of my old brand now includes a hard plastic container with each new box of bandages, rather than the old paper style box.  Plastic, Plastic and More Plastic!

More on sustainability in a future post.

Chad M. Wall

Por Diego Topete

¿Quién dijo que los productos de plástico de hoy en día no duran? Desde hace más de diez años, el capitán Charles Moore descubrió una isla de basura del tamaño de los Estados Unidos flotando desde hace 50 años en las aguas del Océano Pacífico, y con cada año que pasa se vuelve más y más grande.

Mientras navegaba cerca de Hawái, el capitán se dio cuenta de las grandes cantidades de basura que rodeaba su embarcación. Lo asombroso fue que después de una semana de surcar los mares del Pacífico, los desperdicios de plástico seguían flotando en la superficie marina. En 1997, después de fundar la Algalita Marine Research Foundation (Fundación de Investigación Marina Algalita), Moore regresó al Pacífico para realizar estudios acerca de este problema. Encontró que la gran mancha de plástico llegó a tener el tamaño de los EEUU. Sin embargo, en febrero del 2008, el director de investigaciones de la Fundación Algarita, encontró que actualmente el tamaño de la isla de basura se extiende casi desde las costas de California hasta cerca de las costas de Japón, lo que le da un tamaño del doble de los EEUU.

Esta gigantesca mancha de basura no puede ser vista por medio de satélites, de hecho es sólo visible desde pequeñas embarcaciones que se encuentren navegando en el sitio, al contrario de lo que mucha gente cree, no es como si te pudieras parar y caminar sobre la basura. Pero el problema no es lo feo que se ven miles de millones de pequeños pedazos de plástico flotando en el mar, lo malo del asunto es que los animales confunden al plástico con comida; lo que ocasiona un grave descontrol en la cadena alimenticia e intoxicación de peces, aves y mamíferos. Según la ONU (Organización de las Naciones Unidas), alrededor de un millón de aves del mar y cerca de cien mil mamíferos marinos mueren cada año a causa de la contaminación por plásticos en el mar.

Pero esta amenaza no es solamente para la fauna marina; nosotros, los seres humanos, nos vemos afectados también ya que los peces forman parte importante de nuestra alimentación.

¡Pues que manden limpiar el océano!, podríamos pensar. La solución no es tan fácil como parece, no se cuenta con la tecnología suficiente para separar pequeños pedazos de plástico que son del mismo tamaño que el plancton y las algas que flotan junto con la basura, Moore cree que hay un alga por cada seis pedazos de plástico. Si por el momento carecemos de la tecnología para limpiar nuestro cochinero, tenemos la opción de producir plástico que sí sea biodegradable, a diferencia del que se encuentra flotando en el océano, que a pesar de llevar ahí hasta 50 años, no se deshace ni con el sol. Y por supuesto siempre estará la alternativa de re-usar y reciclar, o en lugar de pedir bolsas de plástico cada que vamos al súper, cargar el mandado en una mochila o carrito; ¿quién sabe? Tal vez nuestra siguiente bolsita de plástico pueda flotar cerca de Hawái durante los próximos 100 años.

Landed in Honolulu. Couldn’t wait to take long walk on beach. As usual, such a treat, except for this:

Credit: Flickr -"meerar"

Add a few dead fishes. And Prad and I had plenty of material for another depressing conversation. I told him about the work done by Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and their expeditions to the Garbage Patch in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

If I hadn’t researched this before, I may even have missed the tiny plastics. Every time I visit the island, I am struck by the casual attitude of its inhabitants towards their environment. Trash not just on the beach, but also along hiking trails, roads, . . .

Hold off the next time you grab a disposable bottle of water while picking up your coffee at Starbucks. Their Ethos water may economically benefit some peoples , but the bottle most definately HURTS. Turns out that most of the Styrofoam Jamba Juice cups and discarded flip-flops in the oceans are washed from land and not dumped by ocean going vessels as is the normal thinking according to the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. I became aware of this organization and it’s research while working on a new TV show recently that visited with a couple of their amazing scientists that are putting their lives at risk to make us aware of the trash we produce everyday. They are sailing into the ocean towards a texas sized patch of plastic soup that is referred to as the “Pacific trash gyre” or “plastic vortex”. The sailers and researchers heading this project, Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal, were featured on the green reality series called “Mario’s Greenhouse” with Actor and Director, Mario Van Peebles (Voom Networks). At the time of videotaping with them, they were still in the construction phase of their ocean going vessel affectionately named, Junk Raft, that departed from Los Angeles on June 2nd, 2008.

From the official website:

“Algalita staff set sail on “Junk,” a raft built on 15,000 plastic bottles. Their 2,100 mile journey will take them through the plastic-plagued Northern Pacific Gyre. Designed by Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Joel Paschal, the raft boasts an airplane fuselage, discarded fishing nets, a solar generator, and a wind turbine. This ambitious journey will bring further public attention to the plastic marine debris issue.”

Eriksen and Paschal manage to upload blog entries and video from the middle of Pacific somehow. For this their blog, junkraft.blogspot.com, deserves a visit by all of us. It’s amazing stuff and you can read about their trip AND the massive trash gyre that you may have heard about on the news that their parent organization, The Algalita Marine Research Foundation, is given credit for finding.

today isn’t a dead queen of england’s birthday and to celebrate toronto canada’s globe and mail published a story written two weeks ago about plastics killing our ocean (that’s right, even though it has several fun human names, there’s only one ocean on planet earth). in typical globe and mail fashion, the venerable paper of record saved sounding the alarm for their seventh page and used the last fifth of the article to explain how awesome plastic is. let’s juxtapose from the globe’s coverage:

“The 26-million-square-kilometre area known as the North Pacific Gyre is essentially free of wind – a kind of ocean desert – and its slow-moving, clockwise vortex of water is nearly impossible to plow through. What he [Captain Charles Moore] discovered at the heart of the deep swirls were miles upon miles of water bottles, plastic tarpaulins, dolls and furniture that have been collecting there for as long as 60 years. This plastic soup, with billions of tiny shards of the synthetic material floating just below the surface of the water, is estimated to span an area 1½ times the size of the continental United States.”

versus

“While some environmentalists have argued that enough plastic has been produced that no more would ever be required if we could recycle it better, Cathy Cirko, of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, says there is good reason for more plastic being made today. “Certainly, we don’t like to see plastics in our oceans. We don’t like to see them littered on the ground. We find it quite deplorable. But it’s a fairly complex issue,” she said.”

OR

“There’s almost nothing else I can think of where the parents work so hard, so exhaustively, for so long to raise the next generation. And then you see the chick that’s five, 5½ months old, almost ready to fly, but it’s dead. And the carcass is starting to rot, and right through the rib cage you see that this bird – that is on an island in the middle of the ocean – is packed with cigarette lighters.”

versus

“Another reason is its ability to meet technical requirements to advance the way people live, she said, giving the example of pills being packaged in individual plastic bubbles for safety, or the availability of berries from Argentina year-round because of the durable plastic cases in which they are shipped. “Also, demographically, we’re a country of smaller households,” Ms. Cirko said. “When you get into families of one and two, you get into portion packaging and servings for one person that in the end use more packaging.”

and…

“Diane Lake, a spokeswoman with the Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said that while the ministry is aware of the North Pacific Gyre, it is conducting no real research on the extent or effects of the plastic pollution.”

well, that settles it…

for more on the absolute evils of plastic, our a/effect on our fragile ecosystem (which humans should be wiped clean from) and the Eastern Garbage Patch check out the Captain’s website @ http://www.algalita.org/index.html. fascinating stuff… and scary too!

(ronald reagan says) no

i made a painting with acrylic (SEE PLASTIC) paint. happy victoria day!

photo : © Algalita

Une zone de déchets transportés par les courants a été repérée entre Hawaii et la Californie. Elle est en plastique. Elle fait la taille de la France. Elle rassemble tous les déchets du Pacifique. Cette plaque de détritus n’a pas de nom en français, les Américains, eux, hésitent encore entre “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, ou plus simplement “The Pacific Trash Vortex”. On soupçonne l’existence de semblables plaques sur d’autres océans… Suite de l’article sur Rue 89

Sur le même sujet : 
- Pourquoi la plus grande décharge se trouve-t-elle dans le Pacifique ? Réponse (en anglais)
- Documentaire réalisé par Algalita Marine Research Foundation sur You Tube (en anglais)
- Le site riche en infos de la Fondation Algalita
- Le blog de Greenpeace

As a child who dreamed about becoming a marine biologist and was completely obsessed with all things Little Mermaid, the news about the Gyre trash build-up in the Pacific has touched close to my heart.

I was getting my weekly video fix from my friends at ViroPop (those of you who don’t subscribe should. They give you important little tidbits about the environment and Green movement while still somehow being fun and sarcastic). This week’s video post was about the Gyre.

What is the Gyre? I didn’t know myself. Turns out, it’s a swirling vortex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that has unfortunately gathered up the human world’s discarded plastic trash, including spills from cargo ships making their way out of China, like as ViroPop points out, 80,000 pairs of Nike shoes!! Yet another reason to boycott Nike….

The Gyre has grown to be almost twice the size of Texas and is a serious environmental hazard. According to the experts at Algalita Marine Research Foundation who have been traveling through and researching the Gyre, there are 3.5 million tons of plastic that are all broken into tiny pieces smaller than the size of a penny. The mass of plastic is 6 times heavier than the mass of marine life and the presence of these harmful plastics continues to increase ten fold. YUCK. That is NOT a nice day at the beach!

So what do we do?!? I immediately went into save-the-whale mode and was ready to put on my scuba gear when the experts gave the grave news that the Gyre has gotten so bad we simply cannot sweep up all of the plastic bits in a net and have a brand new beautiful ocean. In fact, pieces of plastic have already been found in over 300 marine species worldwide. That’s plastic IN the animals!!

If we can’t clean up the mess we’ve already made, then the only thing we can do is simply stop using single-use plastics. So for this week’s ultimate Green Tip of the Week, we encourage you to Reduce, Reduce, Reduce, reuse whenever you can, and of course, recycle.

Get yourself a reusable bag (www.ecobags.com) and say no to the plastic double-baggers at the grocery store.

Use biodegradable plates, cups and silverware for your next picnic or rendez-vous (check out these from Branch)

And bring your own reusable coffee mug to the shop (who needs Styrofoam anymore anyway?!?!).

Post a comment and let us know what other methods you are taking to rid your life of all things plastic!

If you don’t know about this, educate yourself…

Search links: Algalita Marine Research Foundation, rubbish soup, plastic island, charles moore

Landfill-on-Sea – Ecologist magazine feature, August/September 2007

The first article detailing the true extent of plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean published in the UK. Picked up by the national press (first headlined by The Independent newspaper) over three months later, in January 2008, and followed by news programmes and features across the media.

Sapete dove si trova la più grande discarica del Mondo? I più maliziosi avranno già esclamato Napoli, invece si tratta di un luogo insospettabile: l’Oceano Pacifico (QUI la notizia).

Gli americani la chiamano “rubbish soup” (minestrone di spazzatura) o “plastic soup” (minestrone di plastica). Si tratta di un’enorme distesa di rifiuti che copre un’area addirittura doppia a quella degli Stati Uniti. L’immensa massa di spazzatura (divisa in bue grandi blocchi) viene tenuta insieme dalle correnti, un po’ galleggia finendo periodicamente sulle spiagge e un po’ si deposita sul fondale. L’enorme discarica ha inizio a circa 900 kilometri dalla costa californiana e si estende lungo l’Oceano, supera le Hawaii e sfiora pure il Giappone.

A lanciare l’allarme dalle pagine dell’Independent è Charles Moore, l’oceanografo americano che ha scoperto i 100 milioni di tonnellate di scarti che fanno il bagno nelle acque oceaniche. Moore, erede di una famiglia di petrolieri, si era imbattuto per caso in questa enorme distesa di rifiuti mentre navigava a margine di una regata. “Per una settimana – ha detto – mi sono ritrovato in mezzo a un mare di immondizia. Come avevamo potuto insozzare un’area così gigantesca?“. Sconvolto dalla scoperta, Moore vendette le sue partecipazioni nell’impero di famiglia e divenne un ambientalista militante. Con i soldi ricavati fondò la Algalita Marine Research Foundation, una fondazione per la ricerca sugli ecosistemi marini.

Pare che circa un quinto della spazzatura arriva lì perché gettato dalle navi, il resto giunge dalla terraferma. A preoccupare maggiormente è la smisurata quantità di plastica perché si degrada difficilmente. Ci si trova di tutto: palloni da football, mattoncini del Lego, siringhe, accendini… e una quantità enorme di buste di plastica. La discarica marina è iniziata a formarsi oltre mezzo secolo fa ed è sconvolgente sapere che ogni pezzo di plastica finito lì dagli anni ‘50 ad oggi è imprigionato ancora nell’enorme “minestrone”.

La plastica galleggiante provoca ogni anno la morte di migliaia di mammiferi marini e di circa un milione di uccelli, ma rappresenta un rischio anche per la salute dell’uomo. Alcuni minuscoli pezzetti di plastica, infatti, assorbono agenti inquinanti (ad esempio, idrocarburi e pesticidi) che poi entrano in diversi modi nella catena alimentare. ”Ciò che cade nell’Oceano finisce dentro agli animali e prima o poi nel nostro piatto”, ha detto Marcus Eriksen, direttore della ricerca della Algalita Marine Research.

Insomma, abbiamo trasformato l’Oceano Pacifico in un contenitore per la raccolta della plastica, ma la produzione di materiali plastici (e di rifiuti in genere) non accenna a diminuire. Quando impareremo a rispettare l’ambiente e noi stessi producendo meno plastica (e meno rifiuti in genere) e a riciclare?