"Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas" (Part 4 -LAT - Altered Oceans series)

[bloom]

Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas

On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.

By Kenneth R. Weiss
August 2, 2006

Of the 500,000 albatross chicks born here each year, about 200,000 die, mostly from dehydration or starvation. A two-year study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that chicks that died from those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs as those that died for other reasons.

The atoll is littered with decomposing remains, grisly wreaths of feathers and bone surrounding colorful piles of bottle caps, plastic dinosaurs, checkers, highlighter pens, perfume bottles, fishing line and small Styrofoam balls. Klavitter has calculated that albatross feed their chicks about 5 tons of plastic a year at Midway.

Albatross fly hundreds of miles in their search for food for their young. Their flight paths from Midway often take them over what is perhaps the world's largest dump: a slowly rotating mass of trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas.

This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents called the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Located halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, the garbage patch is an area of slack winds and sluggish currents where flotsam collects from around the Pacific, much like foam piling up in the calm center of a hot tub....

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean2aug02,0,3130914.story

[soothsayer]

1. Should be easy to clean up, if it's all in one place like that?

(Didn't read the whole article in case it says why that's not so)

[bloom]

2. I was inclined to think that as well

There are graphics that show 2 (huge) swirling areas - one by Japan, one by the US west coast. It seems that some kind of scooper could be devised. I guess the stuff sinks after swirling around for a bit. And maybe there is just too much of it.

The article seemed to advocate people and industry not allowing the stuff to runoff to begin with. It seems that companies would need to be required to clean up their spills as well:

"One ship heading from Los Angeles to Tacoma, Wash., disgorged 33,000 blue-and-white Nike basketball shoes in 2002. Other loads lost at sea include 34,000 hockey gloves and 29,000 yellow rubber ducks and other bathtub toys."

There isn't anything to make that happen right now.

[ramapo]

3. Another pervasive problem

Sure there are collections of this garbage, but the oceans are saturated with plastic, much of it in the form of tiny bits. The plastic pollution is as bad, maybe worse, than chemical runoff.

My travels have been limited to the U.S. and Carribbean but there is one constant, garbage.
It is everywhere and you often find more of it on the resort, island nations. I guess they have neither the money, inclination or space to hide it.

This is yet another blight that our society has unleashed upon nature.

[bloom]

4. The worst place I have seen it was the Texas coast.

Esp. South Padre.

I haven't been to the Caribbean beaches - but to quite a few US ones. Most were not bad - were pretty good - really.

[JohnWxy]

5. Thanks for this post. Important info.

South Padre plastic - probably mostly six-pack beer-can rings.

Plastic garbage, along with giant drift nets, are a real problem.

[jpak]

6. Agreed - I worked near Corpus for several years

The beach trash and tar balls have to be seen to be believed.

Also...I've posted this before, but it's worth another mention here.

I participated on a pole-to-pole oceanographic transect of the Pacific Basin a fews years ago.

The North Pacific between the Aleutians and Hawaii are chock full of plastic debris. On two consecutive days, I went up to the bow and did a 1 hour count of visible pieces passing within 10 meters of the ship (we were doing ~10 knots).

We encountered a piece of plastic every 27 seconds (on average).

It was shocking...

[bloom]

7. I remember your post about that.

This article reminded me of your observations.


It's weird the two areas where the garbage swirls around - off Japan and off of Cali-Mex.

[Boomer]

8. K&R