M
Mike M
Guest
The Eastern Garbage Patch is the largest collection of garbage in the world's oceans, made primarily of plastics and located in the Pacific. The plastics seem to be coming from the US, China, Korea, and Japan in the greatest quantities, though China has overtaken the US in recent years. A number of popular magazines have discussed the problem in detail, but other than that it hasn't gotten much media coverage.
The size of this garbage patch is an incredible 1.5 times the area of the continental United States, or roughly 5 million square miles (13 million square kilometers) with a concentration of roughly one million pieces of plastic per square mile. Fishermen have reported sailing for weeks on end, and encountering nothing but junk, and it's having a devastating impact on wildlife which should come as no surprise. The obvious solution would seem to be trapping the plastic in nets, but the consistency of the garbage patch is more like a dark soup with bits of plastic smaller than the size of the netting making it an ineffective approach.
Is there any solution to this problem? Is it better to attempt the impossible and try to clean up an area larger than the US, or press governments to support companies that produce biodegradable plastics? For example, one company produces plastics for every application that break down into safe byproducts in salt water within 20 days, but with their small size, they can't compete financially with the current producers. And what do we do about China? Can anything be done to address this urgent problem?
The size of this garbage patch is an incredible 1.5 times the area of the continental United States, or roughly 5 million square miles (13 million square kilometers) with a concentration of roughly one million pieces of plastic per square mile. Fishermen have reported sailing for weeks on end, and encountering nothing but junk, and it's having a devastating impact on wildlife which should come as no surprise. The obvious solution would seem to be trapping the plastic in nets, but the consistency of the garbage patch is more like a dark soup with bits of plastic smaller than the size of the netting making it an ineffective approach.
Is there any solution to this problem? Is it better to attempt the impossible and try to clean up an area larger than the US, or press governments to support companies that produce biodegradable plastics? For example, one company produces plastics for every application that break down into safe byproducts in salt water within 20 days, but with their small size, they can't compete financially with the current producers. And what do we do about China? Can anything be done to address this urgent problem?