If there is a page in the Guinness Book of World Records for Largest Soup Ever Made, you might be credited with helping to make it. Oceanographer Charles Moore has discovered a vast garbage dump across the northern Pacific Ocean—a kind of “plastic soup”—that stretches nearly from California to Japan. This enormous expanse of floating plastic debris is almost twice the size of the United States and is estimated to contain 100 million tons of garbage, reports The Independent UK.
Charles Moore first discovered the copious amounts of waste while sailing on a shortcut home from Hawaii to Los Angeles. The northern Pacific waters are known for their stagnant winds and high pressure systems and are usually not traveled by sailors. During every day of his voyage home, Moore noticed heaps of garbage extending for miles around his boat. So how did all that garbage get there?
Waste has accumulated in the north Pacific due to ocean currents and winds bringing it there, creating a kind of “trash vortex.” There are actually two distinct vortexes, called the Eastern and Western Pacific Garbage Patches, which come together on either side of the Hawaiian Islands. The waste occasionally collides with the Islands’ beaches, uniting paradise with plastic. Only about one-fifth of the junk comes from ship refuse, while the rest comes from land. Since 90% of the waste is plastics, the problem it won’t simply biodegrade in time; in fact, some of the plastic waste is already a half century old. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of north Pacific Ocean.
The rubbish is responsible for the deaths of about 100,000 marine animals and more than 1 million seabirds who mistake plastic for food. This is an often overlooked dilemma due to the location of the problem and the effected parties, as well as not being viewable by satellite; but Charles Moore warns that the plastics we put into the ocean become chemically modified and enter back into our food chain. Moore, an heir to a family fortune from oil, has sold his business and become an activist to help increase environmental awareness of the issue. His Algalita foundation is committed to researching and cleaning up the ocean. Perhaps the most effective treatment may turn out to be a giant recycling plant in Hawaii.
