Posted by Snow in 
Do the kids wonder why the mission on trashday to save the plastics from the landfill is so important? Fill them in on Pacific Trash Gyre Island.
Known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, this Pacific Ocean phenomenon is fabled to be twice the size of Texas. The Pacific Trash Vortex is formed in a oceanic gyre, which is something like a Bermuda Triangle of currents.
This incidence of marina pollution could multiply if trash reduction and waste management does not become efficient on a number of wavelengths in the near future. or we’ll all be coughing up plastic in our baby milk soon.
The garbage floating island of plastic debris is a shame.
Marine scientists from California are venturing this week to the middle of the North Pacific for a study of plastic debris accumulating across hundreds of miles (km) of open sea dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
A research vessel carrying a team of about 30 researchers, technicians and crew members embarked on Sunday on a three-week voyage from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, based at the University of California at San Diego.
The expedition will study how much debris — mostly tiny plastic fragments — is collecting in an expanse of sea known as the North Pacific Ocean Gyre, how that material is distributed and how it affects marine life.
The debris ends up concentrated by circular, clockwise ocean currents within an oblong-shaped “convergence zone” hundreds of miles (km) across from end to end near the Hawaiian Islands, about midway between Japan and the West Coast of the United States.
Considering the money this nation and others are throwing around on things like wars and car clunker rebuys and nuclear weapons, it would seem like we had enough cash to pay the garbage bill.
How in this day and age can a waste of ocean detritus be swilling around in the ocean? A fixed area of waste, a permanent address of nonbiodegradeable plastic. For shame!
In 2008, Richard Owen, a building contractor and scuba dive instructor, formed the Environmental Cleanup Coalition to address the issue of the pollution of the North Pacific. The ECC plan calls for modifying a fleet of ships to clear the area of debris and form a restoration and recycling laboratory called Gyre Island.[1][17]
On 1 August 2009 it was announced that Doug Woodring (an ocean conservationist) working in conjunction with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, would be embarking upon an expedition to the plastic vortex in order to explore, photograph, video and to alert the public to the growing threat of ocean waste. The first ship of the expedition departed California on 2 August with about 30 researchers, technicians and crew members. The 170-foot vessel New Horizon is equipped with a laboratory for on-board research, but scientists also will bring back samples for further study.
The second is scheduled to leave on 4 August. In addition to the potential harm to sea life caused by ingesting bits of plastic, the expedition team will look at whether the particles could carry other pollutants, such as pesticides, far out to sea, and whether tiny organisms attached to the debris could be transported to distant regions and thus become invasive species. Aside from conducting scientific research on the impact of the plastic vortex on marine life, the expedition will also experiment with ways to clean up the vortex without harming the marine life in and around it.
(From Wikipedia)
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