Garbage Gyres Appearing In Other Oceans - Diffuse, Fragmented "Plastic Soup" Impossible To Remove

[hatrack]

EDIT

New research shows that plastic has collected in a region of the Atlantic as well, held hostage by converging currents, called gyres, to form a swirling “plastic soup.” And those fragments of plastic could also be present at the other three large gyres in the world’s oceans, says Kara Lavender Law, a member of the oceanography faculty at the Sea Education Association (SEA) in Woods Hole, Mass., which conducted the study.

Because the plastic has broken down into tiny pieces, it is virtually impossible to recover, meaning that it has essentially become a permanent part of the ecosystem. The full impact of its presence there – what happens if fish and other marine animals eat the plastic, which attracts toxins that could enter the food chain – is still unclear.

“It’s a serious environmental problem from a lot of standpoints,” Dr. Law says. “There are impacts on the ecosystem from seabirds, fish, and turtles, down to microscopic plankton.” The possible effect on humans is “a huge open question,” she adds. “If a marine organism were to ingest a contaminated plastic article, it could move up the food chain. But that is far from proven.” The data collected by SEA, from 22 years of sailing through the North Atlantic and Caribbean, show a high concentration of plastic fragments centered about 30 degrees north latitude (in the western North Atlantic), says Law. That aligns with the ocean’s circular current pattern.

But don’t call this region the garbage patch of the Atlantic. Law, who has sailed through the plastic accumulation in the Pacific gyre as well, says the term “plastic soup” is more accurate for both areas. “There’s no large patch, no solid mass of material,” she says. Marcus Eriksen, director of education at Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, Calif., agrees. The idea of a garbage “patch” or “island” twice the size of Texas, a favorite term in the media for the now-infamous spot in the Pacific, feeds misconceptions, he says. “It’s much worse. If it were an island, we could go get it. But we can’t,” because it’s a “thin soup of plastic fragments.”

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http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/06/18/the-pacific-isnt-the-only-ocean-collecting-plastic-trash/

[kestrel91316]

1. I think we should force the companies that manufacture these plastics to

send an armada out with a lot of people to get to work fishing that crap out of the ocean and disposing of it properly. I don't care how many trillions of dollars it costs them, either.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. This stuff is not impossible to remove

All it would take is a good idea and some funding. And the article even states "almost".

[Turbineguy]

3. With the number of ships

laid up because of the economic downturn, this would be a good time. And even if they did not get all of it, a few million tons less would be an improvement.

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. If there's a way to make a buck on it, it will happen

Until then... nada.