Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific

An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said.

Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific



This is a true story, about the product of life. The twisting winds and currents in various areas around the oceans create gigantic swirling pockets of debris that persist on long time scales. Normally this material breaks down, normally that is until humans began producing billions of tons of non-degradable plastics. Now, a seafaring individual traveling into the vast waters between Hawaii and California will encounter what amounts to a floating trash dump, twice the size of Texas. A twisting demon beast that is slowly infesting our beings and claiming our existence as its own.

It is known by many names:
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
North Pacific Gyre
Eastern Garbage Patch
Pacific Trash Vortex

Below are various resources gathered online:

Plastic: Trashing the Oceans Thomas Hayden THOMAS HAYDEN / U.S.News & World Report 4nov02




The Buffalo Readings Homepage - An Island of Garbage Twice the Size of Texas