Case Study: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex is a gyre of oceanic debris, located in the centre of the North Pacific Ocean between 135W to 155W and 35N and 42N. It is an intense concentration of marine trash that exists between Hawaii and California. The patch of waste is notorious for the exceptionally high concentrations of plastics, chemical sludge and various forms of other debris though the exact size of the trash islands is unknown however because it is constantly growing. The region of trash in this area has developed due to the the North Pacifc Subtropical Gyre which is one of the many oceanic gyres that are caused by a convergence of oceanic currents and wind. It is as the currents eventually meet, the Coriolis effect which is the deflection of moving objects caused by the Earth's rotation, causes the water to slowly rotate, in turn forming a funnel for any objects present in the water. With the subtropical gyre being in the Northern hempishere it rotates clockwise along with the high pressure zones with hot equatorial air that results in the formation of the patch of waste.
Due to the tendency of items to gather in oceanic gyres, the existence of a garbage patch was initially predicted in 1988 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) after several years of monitoring the level of trash that was being disposed of in the world's oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has long been considered an oceanic desert, as it consists of tiny phytoplankton along with few big fish or mammals. It is due to the lack of large fish and the gentle breezes, fisherman rarely travel through the gyre that is bombarded with substantial levels of waste. Hence, The Great Pacifc Garbage Patch though, was not offically discovered until 1997 due to its remote location and the harsh conditions for navigation. It was in that year, that Captain Moore has discovered the significant level of waste that been congested in a swirling mass that was tarnishing the pristine Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
This pie chart highlights the level of paper and cardboard that dominates the level of waste in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is plastics, food scraps and yard trimmings that mostly also contribute to the level of waste. It is the image below that displays the level of plastic waste produced purely from the United States and how it has had a significant effect on the waste in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.