Islands of Plastic

Islands of Plastic in Our Oceans by Dennis Copson


While sitting in my dentist's office last week, I happened to pick up a copy of the October 2007 edition of National Geographic Adventure, 'The Green Edition'. While casually leafing through it I came across an interesting half page article (page 68) concerning plastic islands in the middle of our oceans - floating garbage patches thousands of miles from land covering vast areas.

The subject of the short article was an individual named Charles Moore, a transpacific sailor of note. Moore was and is the Captain of the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita. It seems that Captain Moore was returning from a transpacific race in 1997 to his homeport of Long Beach, California when he noticed an unusual phenomenon - these islands of plastic - in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in an area commonly referred to as 'the doldrums'.

I had previously come across some information on this unnatural occurrence while doing research for other plastic pollution articles. However, I passed it by as not very reliable. This recent browsing happenstance piqued my imagination in that it was prominently featured in a magazine of impeccable credentials. There had to be something there - something I could sink my teeth into. Not many of us are ocean going sailors who might see this abomination up close as did Captain Moore. But apparently these islands exist - huge mid ocean garbage dumps created by plastic and other waste discarded at sea or washed into it from land, driven by wind and currents to mid ocean where they join up to form this mass of pollution.

Captain Moore describes his first hand observation of this in his article "Trashed...Across the Pacific Ocean, Plastics, Plastics Everywhere" published in Natural History magazine in November 2003. In that interesting piece he relates his first observance: "It was on our way home, after finishing the Los Angeles-to-Hawaii sail race known as the Transpac, that my crew and I first caught sight of the trash, floating in one of the most remote regions of all the oceans... as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic... It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments...." In the National Geographic Adventure article he says "The gyre (doldrums) is windless and calm, so anything that floats ends up there. We motored through shampoo bottles, bags, fishing nets. This went on for days, which got me concerned. ... There are five similar gyres in the world, and it's pretty likely they're also contaminated." Moore has since returned to the area several times, done further study, and estimates the accumulation of floating debris including plastic at more than seven million tons. (Moore is the founder of and a researcher for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a nonprofit group "dedicated to the protection of the marine environment and its watersheds through research, education, and restoration". They could use your support. Visit them at www.algalita.org) Shocking! As I further explored the problem my immediate reaction to this information was "Why have I not heard more about this?" The plastic pollution of our oceans has apparently been known to researchers for years. Sometimes I think the scientific community fails to adequately educate the general public concerning these types of things. They 'research' and then do more research spending considerable effort and resources. Whatever and whenever they publish, it is mostly confined to scientific journals that the reading public rarely, if ever, sees. I am convinced of the people's willingness to help solve any problem if they are given the straight, nonscientific version of it. (There is nothing more boring to read than a scientist's report replete with scientific terms generally not known to the ordinary person.)

Apart from the obvious fact of these floating garbage dumps being unsightly, there is the less than obvious effect they are having on marine life. A floating plastic bag, mostly transparent in the sea water, becomes a meal for the unsuspecting sea turtle that recognizes it as a jelly fish - a delicacy to the turtle. After eating it, the plastic bag becomes lodged in the turtle's digestive tract and it is indigestible. This may - and does - prove fatal. Sea birds consume floating plastic such as bottle caps. Dead birds' intestines have been examined and found to contain these and other plastic debris which was the probable cause of their deaths. Plastic and other trash in our oceans is estimated to be killing more than a million sea birds and 100,000 mammals and turtles each year according to United Nations reports. Scientists relate that plastic in the marine ecosystem has more than tripled in the last 40 odd years and its effect is yet to be fully determined. We do know that it is not a positive one.

There are too many other damaging aspects to various other marine mammals, birds, and sea life to list here in detail. Research online will reveal the scope of the problem for those interested in learning more.

Since we have been making plastic in any large amounts for only about forty years, this is a rather new problem - one that has escaped our attention while it has truly become unique in its scope and breadth. We can't 'see' it in our daily lives. It is out to sea and therefore unthreatening to us on land. We sometimes see plastic debris washed onto our beaches and organize cleanups. Just imagine the logistics - and expense - of organizing a cleanup of the vast Pacific Ocean? There are millions of tons of this material out there - an impossible task.

However, we can do something while here on terra firma. Use less plastic: substitute reusable canvas bags for your store's plastic bags while shopping. Do not discard plastic where it can wash into the ocean or other waterways such as rivers and lakes. Let manufactures know you are not happy with excessive use of plastic in packaging. (Ever buy something in a big plastic package only to open it to find a tiny item which has been over packaged? Then we discard that packaging to the landfill where it will take perhaps hundreds of years to disintegrate - or worse, discard it into our streams, rivers, and oceans where it will eventually join up with other debris to form more and larger islands of plastic.)

In my case, I have always been fascinated with the oceans. I loved such books as "Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft" by Thor Heyerdahl, the South Pacific classics "Mutiny on the Bounty" as well as Herman Melville's "Typee", and the like. I always pictured the azure blue Pacific Ocean, especially the idyllic South Pacific, as being a pristine place. Apparently that is no longer the case.

I have sailed across much of the Atlantic and Pacific courtesy of the United States Navy - as a US Marine 'guest' I might add. I have to admit I wasn't looking for islands of plastic during those voyages. It now concerns me that we have vast garbage patches floating out there and we know so little about it. "Knowledge is Power" it is said. Read up on this and then do something to help, won't you? At least do not discard your plastic into our waterways!

"Every single piece of rubbish has an owner. And every single person can make a difference by making sure they take their rubbish with them when they leave the beach." ~ Andrea Crump, a litter projects coordinator with the Marine Conservation Society (United Kingdom)