After
thinking about how much stuff ends up in landfills and as litter on
the sides of roads etc., I was curious about how much trash ends up
in the ocean. Upon further reading, I learned about the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch. It is an area of
litter found between Hawaii and California in middle of the North
Pacific Subtropical Gyre.
An ocean gyre is created by wind patterns
and draws in debris in a circular motion. The collection of trash
and other debris sits in the middle of the gyre and is unable to
escape and added to by the pulling circular motion. Much of the
trash is not biodegradable so it just builds up over time and breaks
down into smaller pieces called micro plastics that can't be seen by
the naked eye but are just as harmful.
This
build up creates a huge problem for marine wildlife. Perhaps the
biggest problem is that plastic doesn't decompose but it breaks up
into smaller pieces that are then eaten by animals and this problem
continues up the food chain. Another issue is that animals can
easily become trapped in the garbage and hurt or killed by it.
read more about it at:
This reminds me about how eating too much fish can lead to harmful levels of mercury in the human body and how we should eat lower on the food chain to both conserve energy and prevent high levels of mercury in our bloodstreams.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting and sad! I had no idea this area existed, and would be interested to see if there were any efforts being taken into diminishing it!
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to see what kinds of garbage are in this area in the ocean. For example, where did these products come from and how far did they travel to get there? I would assume that garbage would be able to travel all the way from Indiana to this area in the Pacific Ocean.
ReplyDelete