The list of household waste in the great Pacific

An albatross belly, bulging with splinters of plastic. Turtles caught in fishnets. A mahi-mahi who had swallowed plastic the size of a lipstick.

Each year, up to 12 million tons of plastic waste are washed away in the oceans around the world. Some of it is pushed back to the coast in a stifling mass of cups, straws, bags and bottles that can cover the beaches and coastal waters. The rest, including lint of synthetic garments and pieces of tires crushed in the gutters, is pulled offshore by the wind and currents, slowly gathering in swirling swirls.

Hawaiian monk seal entangled in discarded fishing nets.

National Administration of Oceans and the Atmosphere

It is joined by fishing gear lost at sea and waste dumped by ships. This plastic, which decomposes but never decomposes, becomes a part of the ocean, creating a smog of microplastics that capture marine animals and are reabsorbed in food, with sometimes fatal consequences for marine life.

"I saw a dolphin who had a fishing line caught on his dorsal fin. It actually cut the fin, the tip of it having disappeared, "said Carlie Herring, researcher in the Marine Debris Management Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees research on the impacts of this waste.

There is even evidence that when fish eat the tiny pieces of plastic, the chemicals in plastic can affect their health. Some experts are concerned that this could hurt people who eat fish.

We'll show you where it begins, take-away dinners and abandoned toys at the Deep Pacific and San Francisco Bay, where a non-profit organization has ambitious plans to clean up these large floating plots over the next five years. years.

The North Pacific Ocean Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists' collections of the SEAPLEX voyage of August 10 revealed small jellyfish (Velella velella) with plenty of plastic.

J. Leichter,

It starts when plastic is not in the trash or recycling

Plastic waste spills from roads into culverts, into streams and finally into rivers where they enter the ocean. Or it is thrown on the side of ships or sewers that feed directly to the sea.

Garbage enters the waters of coastal countries, the majority from Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

According to a study published in the journal Science, developing economies that do not have garbage recycling programs that can track the growing use of disposable plastics are responsible for a disproportionate share of waste entering the classroom. water. in 2015.

Yet, the United States produces the largest amount of plastic waste per capita in the world, about 270 pounds per person per year.

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The ocean gyres create garbage stains that can be twice the size of Texas

The ocean has five major gyres: the North Pacific, the South Pacific, the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Due to the currents, Asian plastics are heading towards the North Pacific Gyre, creating the largest waste field in the world.

Stronger plastic items, such as detergent bottles and combs, can escape the coastal current and end 1500 miles from the shore. These are supplemented by fishing gear lost and discarded.

Over time, much of the plastic breaks down into tiny pieces, called "microplastics," by the wind, the waves, and the sun. These pieces can be the size of a nail at the size of a grain of rice or smaller. Because they are made of plastic, they will never decompose, they will become smaller and smaller.

This current is carried by global currents into one of the five "garbage gyres", vast expanses of ocean, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away, where swirling currents are gradually concentrating in waters infected with a "smog" trickle discards, buoys and other industrial fishing gear.

Marine life that comes into contact with this plastic can get tangled and cut with larger pieces, or have the stomach filled with inedible plastic because they confuse smaller pieces with food. .

"The sea snows" falls to the bottom of the ocean

A dead Laysan albatross sits on the ground in Midway Atoll, with an exposed stomach filled with debris that he consumed around his coastal habitat. Marine animals can not digest debris and often die of starvation.

C. Fackler, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

In the end, much of this material flows to the bottom of the ocean. This can happen when a fish or other marine life eats and then excretes it, covering it with detritus that allow it to sink. The same can happen with small pieces of plastic coated with marine biofilm, composed of bacteria and other microorganisms, which eventually makes them heavy enough to sink.

These pieces are slowly falling down as part of what is called "marine snow", tiny pieces of rotting material and other objects. According to NOAA, they can fall weeks before reaching the bottom of the oceans. Once there, the pieces of plastic can be eaten by the deep bottoms, which can further damage them by chemical contamination or actual physical damage to their intestines.

A 2,000-foot marine sieve will clean it

In September, a Dutch non-profit organization launches the Ocean Cleanup project to try to clean the Pacific basket patch. His machine consists of a giant, 2,000-foot-long marine sieve consisting of pipes that float on the surface of the water with skirting boards underneath, scrap metal in the center of a U-shaped drawing. The group will test its design for several months on the high seas after it leaves the San Francisco Bay where it is built.

Some scientists fear that the project will be successful, but the money could be better spent to solve the fundamental problem: to prevent the plastic from entering the ocean.

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