In the North Pacific Ocean, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a concentration of marine trash. Litter that winds up in oceans, seas, and other big bodies of water is known as marine trash. The Pacific garbage vortex, often known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretches from the west coast of North America to Japan. The patch is made up of two parts: the Western Garbage Patch, which is located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, which is located between Hawaii and California in the United States.
The North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, located a few hundred kilometers north of Hawaii, connects these bands of whirling debris. Warm water from the South Pacific collides with colder water from the Arctic in this convergence zone. The zone serves as a highway, transporting debris from one patch to the next.
The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre encompasses the whole Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A gyre is a huge system of spinning ocean currents, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. However, the garbage patch is increasingly being described as a vortex of plastic waste and debris in the water that has been broken down into minute particles. The California current, the North Equatorial current, the Kuroshio current, and the North Pacific current all rotate clockwise around a 20 million square kilometer (7.7 million square mile) region to form the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The region in the middle of a gyre is usually quiet and steady. The gyre’s round motion attracts debris to the stable core, where it is trapped. The California Current, for example, is pushed southward by a discarded plastic water bottle off the coast of California.
It’s possible that it’ll catch the North Equatorial Current, which crisscrosses the Pacific. The bottle may drift north on the fierce Kuroshiro Current near Japan’s coast. Finally, the bottle follows the North Pacific Current eastward. The bottle is gradually drawn in by the slowly rolling vortexes of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches. Because much of the garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is non-biodegradable, it accumulates. Many polymers, for example, do not degrade; instead, they break down into ever-smaller fragments.
For many people, the concept of a “garbage patch” brings up thoughts of a floating island of junk. In truth, these patches are nearly entirely made up of microplastics, which are microscopic particles of plastic. Microplastics are invisible to the human eye in some cases. Even satellite imaging fails to reveal a massive swath of trash. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s microplastics may make the sea seem like a foggy soup. Larger objects, such as fishing gear and shoes, are incorporated into the soup. Underneath the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, there might be an undersea garbage dump. Oceanographers and ecologists have revealed that around 70% of marine garbage falls to the ocean’s bottom.
While oceanographers and climatologists anticipated the formation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the trash vortex was spotted by a racing boat skipper named Charles Moore. Moore had just finished a yachting event and was sailing from Hawaii to California. Moore and his crew spotted millions of bits of plastic surrounding his ship as they crossed the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
Nobody knows how big the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is or how much garbage it contains. Scientists can’t scour the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre because it’s too big. Furthermore, not all rubbish floats on the surface. Denser material can sink centimetres or even metres beneath the surface, making determining the size of the vortex practically difficult. Land-based sources account for around 80% of the plastic in the ocean, with boats and other marine sources accounting for the remaining 20%. These percentages, however, differ by area. Due to ocean current dynamics and increased fishing activity in the Pacific Ocean, synthetic fishing nets make up over half of the mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to a 2018 research.
Plastics make up the bulk of marine debris, despite the fact that many various forms of rubbish reach the water. This is due to two factors. First, because of its durability, low cost, and malleability, plastic is increasingly being employed in consumer and industrial items. Second, instead of biodegrading, plastic objects break down into tiny fragments.
The sun breaks down these plastics into smaller and smaller fragments in the water, a process known as photodegradation. Plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, and Styrofoam cups account up the majority of the waste. Marine debris in the gyre may be extremely detrimental to marine life. Plastic bags, for example, are frequently mistaken for jelly, a favourite diet of loggerhead sea turtles. Albatrosses mistook plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and fed them to chicks, who died from hunger or organ rupture.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s floating garbage prompted National Geographic Emerging Explorer David de Rothschild and his Adventure Ecology crew to build the Plastiki, a giant catamaran built entirely of plastic bottles. The Plastiki’s sturdiness demonstrated the strength and endurance of plastics, as well as the inventive ways they may be recycled and the environmental hazard they offer when they don’t degrade. The Plastiki was successfully travelled from San Francisco, California, to Sydney, Australia, in 2010.
Scientists and explorers believe that the best strategy to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is to reduce or eliminate our use of throwaway plastics and increase our usage of biodegradable resources. Individuals, manufacturers, and businesses are being supported in their transition from toxic, disposable plastics to biodegradable or reusable materials by organisations such as the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the Plastic Oceans Foundation, which are using social media and direct action campaigns.
But to reduce the generation, you need to start at the very beginning of the chain, and clean it up. We at SkrapNest envision a day where trash generation would negligible, till then, we are here to dealt with it.