I was rather alarmed the other day when I read an article in my news feed about Garbage Patches floating in the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Azores Islands. To say that I was disturbed by reading about this, and seeing the images that accompanied the article, would be the understatement of the year.
It's gross.
And it's pretty much all recyclable plastic.
The floating garbage is hard to spot from above the surface, and is spun together by a vortex of currents. It was documented by two separate groups of scientists who trawled the sea between Bermuda and the Azores. The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.
Nice, right?
The debris is obviously harmful for fish and sea mammals, and at the top of the food chain, potentially us humans (!), even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible. Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses non-biodegradable materials for disposable products.
One study team from Santa Monica, CA sailed across the Atlantic for their research project. They plan similar studies in the South Atlantic in November and the South Pacific next spring. On the voyage from Bermuda to the Azores, they crossed the Sargasso Sea, an area bounded by ocean currents including the Gulf Stream. They took samples every 100 miles, and each time they pulled up the trawl, it was full of plastic.
A separate study by undergraduates with the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association collected more than 6,000 samples on trips between Canada and the Caribbean over two decades. The lead investigator, Kara Lavendar Law, said they found the highest concentrations of plastics between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude, an offshore patch equivalent to the area between roughly Cuba and Washington, D.C. Long trails of seaweed, mixed with bottles, crates and other flotsam, drift in the still waters of the area, known as the North Atlantic Subtropical Convergence Zone. Cummins' team even netted a Trigger fish trapped alive inside a plastic bucket.
But most of the trash is nearly invisible, with countless specks of plastic often smaller than pencil erasers suspended near the surface of the Atlantic.
According to Charles Moore, an Ocean Researched credited with discovering the Pacific Ocean patch in 1997, "Humanity's plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint."
So what is it that we can do?
1) We can consciously use less plastic in our everyday lives, by making choices to use other materials.
2) RECYCLE. Sometimes it is not possible to buy something in a non-plastic container. But always, ALWAYS recycle your containers.
3) Don't pollute! When you are out and about, don't throw your trash out the car window or leave it in the parking lot. All storm drains dump in to the ocean! Put your trash where it belongs, in the trash can!
4) Do what you can to do your part to take care of your environment. If that means picking up trash and throwing it away in the proper recepticals - EVEN when it's not your own trash - then do it! Participate in a Beach Clean Up, a Bay Cleanup, a Park Cleanup... whatever you have time for. Just remember to do your part.
But the single most important thing that we can do is educate our children on taking care of the Environment. One way that I have done this is by telling my eldest son that if we don't throw away our trash and recycle that our planet will end up just like Earth does in the movie Wall-E. Sound a bit ridiculous, but think about it... with Trash Islands the size of Cuba being discovered we are well on our way to being over-ridden with trash if we don't make a conscious effort to consume less.
We are all a part of Nature. If we destroy Nature, we will destroy ourselves.
