Forget "Cabbage Patch", Try "Garbage Patch"?
We all remember the day, March 11, 2011, when the world witnessed one of the most unimaginable events it has ever seen, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
People watched glued to their TV sets in disbelief, as they gazed at live footage of a huge tsunami engulfing the Japanese region.
For many, who have not followed the Fukushima situation beyond that day, may not be privy to the fact that further earthquakes have since hit that region releasing even more radioactive elements into the Pacific Ocean.
Perhaps even more hidden to most, is the fact that over the past few years, millions of tons of debris from the tsunami event, have been making their way across the Pacific Ocean (via the North Pacific Gyre/ current), to an area known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
After swirling around the Pacific Ocean for years, debris eventually make their way into two garbage patches, one located in the east, and the other in the west pacific.
The exact size of the patch is unknown.
However, the Eastern Garbage Patch is estimated to measure somewhere between 270,000 square miles, and 5.
8 million square miles, and is located in the central North Pacific Ocean.
There is considerable difficulty in measuring the scope of this giant trash patch, because it is mainly comprised of broken down plastics called polymers which lay submerged underwater (kind of like a plastic particle soup),which cannot be picked up by satellite imaging This region acts like a vortex that unrelentingly sucks in debris from all over the Pacific Ocean into one secular patch.
A similar patch also exists in the Atlantic Ocean.
Since the Japanese disaster even more debris has made their way to join the toxic marine landfill site.
Not only plastics (which are bad enough), but imagine pieces of houses and their entire contents, cars and refrigerators leaking oil, fuel and gases, fishing boats, shipping containers from industrial plants leaching pesticides, and chemicals into the Pacific Ocean.
Just about everything one could think of that you can find in someone's house, business, or environment, has made their home in this patch.
This floating PVC, PCB, PAH and DDT, plastic plankton wasteland not only has consequences for the shipping industry, but also for wildlife (and the ecosystem as a whole).
Much marine wildlife such as birds, turtles and fish ingest this plastic plankton causing many to die.
These chemicals once absorbed in the digestive system, act as hormone disruptors in their bodies.
Consequently, it makes its way throughout the "web of life".
Humans who eat fish for example, will also be eating these toxic plastic planktons which will eventually cause their bodies to fall ill from the hormone disrupting chemicals found within them.
For many years now, several expeditions have travelled to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" in an effort to find concrete solutions to this environmental issue.
One recent expedition called the TEDxDelft2012 suggests a concept called "the Ocean Cleanup" which might prove to be the answer.
With next to zero operation costs, they propose using the surface currents to let the debris drift to specially designed arms and collection platforms.
These floating booms do not capture debris, but merely divert it.
The leaders of this expedition believe this is the best way to grab not only large debris but to also capture these plastic plankton type particles as well.
They estimate being able to cleanup these gyres in the next five years.
While in theory this type of revolutionary cleanup may seem to be the answer to removing this garbage patch from the Pacific Ocean, it is also imperative that it also go hand in hand with educational programs designed to teach the public, and industries, to make a move away from the use of plastics, (and other toxic substances), to more eco friendly materials to avoid further growth continuance after the cleanup measures take place.
People watched glued to their TV sets in disbelief, as they gazed at live footage of a huge tsunami engulfing the Japanese region.
For many, who have not followed the Fukushima situation beyond that day, may not be privy to the fact that further earthquakes have since hit that region releasing even more radioactive elements into the Pacific Ocean.
Perhaps even more hidden to most, is the fact that over the past few years, millions of tons of debris from the tsunami event, have been making their way across the Pacific Ocean (via the North Pacific Gyre/ current), to an area known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
After swirling around the Pacific Ocean for years, debris eventually make their way into two garbage patches, one located in the east, and the other in the west pacific.
The exact size of the patch is unknown.
However, the Eastern Garbage Patch is estimated to measure somewhere between 270,000 square miles, and 5.
8 million square miles, and is located in the central North Pacific Ocean.
There is considerable difficulty in measuring the scope of this giant trash patch, because it is mainly comprised of broken down plastics called polymers which lay submerged underwater (kind of like a plastic particle soup),which cannot be picked up by satellite imaging This region acts like a vortex that unrelentingly sucks in debris from all over the Pacific Ocean into one secular patch.
A similar patch also exists in the Atlantic Ocean.
Since the Japanese disaster even more debris has made their way to join the toxic marine landfill site.
Not only plastics (which are bad enough), but imagine pieces of houses and their entire contents, cars and refrigerators leaking oil, fuel and gases, fishing boats, shipping containers from industrial plants leaching pesticides, and chemicals into the Pacific Ocean.
Just about everything one could think of that you can find in someone's house, business, or environment, has made their home in this patch.
This floating PVC, PCB, PAH and DDT, plastic plankton wasteland not only has consequences for the shipping industry, but also for wildlife (and the ecosystem as a whole).
Much marine wildlife such as birds, turtles and fish ingest this plastic plankton causing many to die.
These chemicals once absorbed in the digestive system, act as hormone disruptors in their bodies.
Consequently, it makes its way throughout the "web of life".
Humans who eat fish for example, will also be eating these toxic plastic planktons which will eventually cause their bodies to fall ill from the hormone disrupting chemicals found within them.
For many years now, several expeditions have travelled to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" in an effort to find concrete solutions to this environmental issue.
One recent expedition called the TEDxDelft2012 suggests a concept called "the Ocean Cleanup" which might prove to be the answer.
With next to zero operation costs, they propose using the surface currents to let the debris drift to specially designed arms and collection platforms.
These floating booms do not capture debris, but merely divert it.
The leaders of this expedition believe this is the best way to grab not only large debris but to also capture these plastic plankton type particles as well.
They estimate being able to cleanup these gyres in the next five years.
While in theory this type of revolutionary cleanup may seem to be the answer to removing this garbage patch from the Pacific Ocean, it is also imperative that it also go hand in hand with educational programs designed to teach the public, and industries, to make a move away from the use of plastics, (and other toxic substances), to more eco friendly materials to avoid further growth continuance after the cleanup measures take place.
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