By Alexander Brooks, Challenge Wednesday Writer
The Great Pacific garbage patch (GPGP), also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the North central Pacific Ocean. It is larger than Germany, France and Spain combined!
The Great Pacific garbage patch (GPGP), also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the North central Pacific Ocean. It is larger than Germany, France and Spain combined! It’s approximately the weight of 500 Jumbo Jets, and overall, it has an area of 1,600,000 km2. Obviously, this is a huge problem and we need to fix this soon, or it may be too late.
It is made up of all-sorts of plastics like single-use plastic bottles, fishing nets and microplastics. There is around about 80,000 tonnes of buyout plastics. The pile is now up to 1,800,000 (1.8 trillion) pieces of plastic. Between California and Hawaii, there is a Garbage Patch of plastic that has built up on the marine gyre over the past years. Microplastics (tiny pieces of plastic) smaller than 5mm in size are inside the accumulation. Tiny fragments of this size could easily be consumed into the mouth or caught up the nose of marine life. This is one of the biggest threats to marine life.
The pollutants of these microplastics are becoming more and more concentrated as they are being consumed by species found higher up in the food chain. Another environmental threat to marine life is brought by large fishing nets from fishermen working around the area. These fishing nets are a threat to marine life because they trap creatures inside them and they can’t escape, meaning that they may become injured or get killed.. This process is called ghost fishing.
In 2015, global production of plastics production hit 322,000,000! Some Year 7 students replied to a short questionnaire sent out about this issue. 83.3% said they would agree that plastic pollution is a grave problem. Some replies stated to “stop using plastics altogether”, “ stop littering”, and to “find ways on how to use plastics more than once”.
This issue is also a threat to birds too, as they scoop up the plastic thinking it is fish, but actually, it is microplastics. This causes the birds stomachs to become clogged up with plastic-sometimes, if not caught early this causes their death.
Luckily people offer to help clear up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A team of 75 people plan to build floating barriers at the GPGP to aid them collect plastic to recycle.
This has been and still is a major global concern. Locals, workers and governments have still been dumping and throwing harmful plastics and chemicals into the ocean. So, next time you are travelling by water, or think about littering in the oceans, don’t, because the consequences are greater than you imagine.
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