Floating garbage in the Pacific

[rumrunner]

Just saw on the news the mess on the beaches of Hawaii. Why has no one built a machine to go out and harvest the debris BEFORE it makes land. Would that not be cheaper and easier than trying to clean up all the beaches of all the countries involved.
Ledts stop it before it arrives

[Captain Awesome]

Go ahead. Ocean is that way.

[grammafreddy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Paci ... bage_Patch

[WhatThe]

Ya, nobody gives a rats arse about this sort of thing. It'll cost huge dollars to cleanup and no one wants or cares to pay for that. After all, it's "not in my backyard"
Even here, these topics tend get ignored in favour of something trivial. check the "views" after the thread has been around for a bit. I'll bet it's not many.

[ForestfortheTrees]

It's not just cleaning it up in the oceans before it washes up on the beach, we need to stop the plastic getting into the oceans in the first place. As the plastic breaks down into tiny fragments it is eaten by birds and sea life and enters the food chain.

Local filmmaker Jan Vozenilek and photographer Chris Jordan are making a film about the impact of these plastics on the Albatross population of Midway Island. It really is tragic. The birds don't recognize that the plastic is not food and eat it. They end up dying because their stomachs are filled with bottle tops and other pieces of plastic. Take a look at the website for the movie.
http://www.midwayjourney.com/

[5VP]

How long has this garbabe been marooned there?

Who rescued her??

Is she single??

[grammafreddy]

She's dirty and used - you don't want her :D

[Queen K]

5VP wants her all right.

[WhatThe]

Ya, nobody gives a rats arse about this sort of thing. It'll cost huge dollars to cleanup and no one wants or cares to pay for that. After all, it's "not in my backyard"
Even here, these topics tend get ignored in favour of something trivial. check the "views" after the thread has been around for a bit. I'll bet it's not many.

Less than a hundred views, like I said nobody cares.

[Corneliousrooster]

http://www.vice.com/toxic/toxic-garbage-island-1-of-3

Yay plastic! This is a great vid to add some perspective to the size of the problem.

[ForestfortheTrees]

http://www.vice.com/toxic/toxic-garbage-island-1-of-3

Yay plastic! This is a great vid to add some perspective to the size of the problem.

I have seen this vid a while ago. It is tragic. A classic out of sight out of mind.

WhatThe - some people do care, it is just that not a lot of them frequent this forum.

Here is an image of an Albatross on Midway Island from Chris Jordan's work.

[grammafreddy]

So where is this "island" coming from? Who is dumping into the ocean?

[ForestfortheTrees]

So where is this "island" coming from? Who is dumping into the ocean?

All the plastic ends up in the Nth Pacific because of a wind-driven circular current called the North Pacific Gyre. Plastic from Nth America and Asia that ends up in the water circulates in the current and breaks down. There is no "island of garbage" per se, that is a media popularization. However, there is a mass of plastic floating in this area as shown by the video. Midway Island is a physical island that is on the edge of the Gyre and so a lot of the plastic washes up on the shores and the Albatross eat it thinking it is food.

Where does all the plastic com from? It comes from our addiction to single-use plastics and our willingness to discard it once it has been used. Think bottled water, plastic wrapping, lids on disposable coffee cups. There is such an immense volume of this stuff that some of it ends up in our waterways and then into the oceans. Check out the shores of Okanagan Lake after a wind storm.

Sadly, this stuff is getting into the food chain through aquatic life and birds. Hope this answers your question Gramma. The next question that needs answering is how to fix it.

[grammafreddy]

So, it is consumer produced?

Then the answer - or at least part of it - is for the consumer to not purchase products packaged in plastics maybe?

Take, as an example. the lids on disposable coffee cups and drink cups - maybe they could be made like the old cardboard milk bottlecaps ...



with a punch-down hole in the middle for a straw (also made of paper).

Glass bottles and waxed cardboard containers would also be better.

Nothing will change if consumers don't demand changes. If they stop buying the offending products, the companies will change.

[Glacier]

Less than a hundred views, like I said nobody cares.

This highlights a prime example of why property rights are essential for sustainability. When no one owns the land or water outright environmental disasters get ignored. Think of the Atlantic cod fishery.