A typical flight from Hawaii to Japan takes nearly 7 hours. If you happen to get so lucky and take the long route over the Pacific Plastic Island, you would see a large floating rubbish collection nearly twice the size of Texas starting off the coast California, passing by Hawaii, and ultimately reaching the coast of Japan. Although fairly new in its discovery, spotted first in the early 90’s by American Oceanographer, Charles Moore, the Pacific Plastic Island has already been accredited with bringing several species of marine life to near extinction, and the effects are multiplying each year people don’t recycle and industry boats and beach visitors litter.
In 2006, America produced an estimated 1.3 million tons of plastic PET water bottles, requiring the energy equivalent of 50 million barrels of oil, and 76.5 of these bottles ended up in landfills or the ocean. This 100 million ton flotsam has everything from plastic water bottles to legos to kayaks. It is not only long in its stretch, but also has an incredible depth, researchers finding vast areas extending all the way to the ocean floor.
A garbage patch by any other name would smell as sour. This coagulated pile of waste has many names, often referred to as the Trash Vortex or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but either way you say it, this destructive accumulation accounts for millions of wildlife deaths, toxic emissions, and a growing set of issues that cannot be reversed. An estimated several hundred leatherback turtles die each year because they swallow plastic nurdles (lentil-sized pellets of plastic accounting for 10% of all marine plastic debris). These miniature pollutants act as chemical sponges, and once they are consumed, they enter the food chain for generations to come, even landing on our dinner plates.
It is important to know that we as humans do not have a magic wand to erase our trash. It is building up in our oceans and with the durability of today’s materials, it will not be going away any time in this century. Reducing the amount of plastic-packaged products in one’s every day life will not only lower the amount of petroleum oil needed to produce such items, but also reduce the hazardous effects on animal and plant sea life. Check out the video on the following link to see these “modern day marine tumbleweeds” (Greenpeace, 2012).
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