The Pacific Garbage Patch had been predicted as early as the late Eighties but it was only formally
discovered in 1997 Photo: IMAGEBROKER
As large as the USA, the Great Pacific Waste Patch is the biggest dump in the world. Ed
Cumming discovers that it keeps getting bigger, and could be poisoning us all
By Ed Cumming
Published: 7:00AM GMT 16 Mar 2010
61 Comments (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7450769/The-Biggest-Dump-in-the-World.html#disqus_thread)
The world’s biggest rubbish dump
keeps growing. The Great Pacific
Garbage Patch – or the Pacific Trash
Vortex – is a floating monument to our
culture of waste, the final resting place
of every forgotten carrier bag, every
discarded bottle and every piece of
packaging blown away in the wind.
Opinions about the exact size of this
great, soupy mix vary, but some claim
it has doubled over the past decade,
making it now six times the size of the
UK.
Dr Simon Boxall, a physical
oceanographer at the National
Oceanography Centre at the University
of Southampton, goes even further:
“It’s the size of North America. But
although the patch itself is extremely large, it’s only one very clear representation of the much bigger worldwide
problem.”
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This global problem is the motive behind the Plastiki, a 60ft, 12-ton catamaran built from 12,500 recycled plastic
bottles, which embarks on its maiden voyage from San Francisco this week. The brainchild of David de Rothschild, the
flamboyant British banking heir and environmentalist, the Plastiki will sail right through the middle of the Garbage Patch
as part of a campaign to help make more people aware of the Pacific’s threatened communities and of the damage our
waste is doing to our oceans.
Plastic is the main issue. Fifty years ago, most flotsam was biodegradable. Now it is 90 per cent plastic. In 2006, the
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United Nations Environment Programme estimated that there were 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in every square mile
of ocean. With its stubborn refusal to biodegrade, all plastic not buried in landfills – roughly half of it – sweeps into
streams and sewers and then out into rivers and, finally, the ocean. Some of it – some say as much as 70 per cent –
sinks to the ocean floor. The remainder floats, usually within 20 metres of the surface, and is carried into stable circular
currents, or gyres “like ocean ring-roads”, says Dr Boxall. Once inside these gyres, the plastic is drawn by wind and
surface currents towards the centre, where it steadily accumulates. The world’s major oceans all have these gyres, and
all are gathering rubbish. Although the North Pacific – bordering California, Japan and China – is the biggest, there are
also increasingly prominent gyres in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Our
problems with plastics are only just beginning.
The Pacific Garbage Patch had been predicted as early as the late Eighties but it was only formally discovered in 1997
by Charles Moore, an American yacht-racing captain sailing home across the North Pacific from a competition in
Hawaii. He noticed a large amount of debris in the centre of the gyre, and together with the oceanographer, Curtis
Ebbesmeyer, formulated the idea of the Eastern Garbage Patch. Other research revealed a secondary patch to the
West, and these two together constitute the Great Pacific Patch, located roughly between 135-155°W and 35-45°N. In
1999, Moore followed up his initial findings with a report showing that there was eight times as much plastic as plankton
in the North Pacific. And there is a lot of plankton.
The image of a great floating mound of trash, though evocative, can be misleading. Dr Boxall says: “People imagine it
as a kind of football pitch of rubbish you can go and walk on – it’s not like that.” As most of the plastic has been broken
down into tiny particles, floating beneath the surface, it is impossible to photograph from aircraft or satellites, or even
really to see until you are right in its centre. As a result, it is difficult to convey the grave danger this 100 million tons or
so of rubbish – and counting – presents. This is where the Plastiki – named after Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki project in
1947 – comes in. Its crew of six is being skippered by the rising star of British ocean sailing, Jo Royle, 29. Ms Royle is
everything you could want at the figurehead of your mission: blonde, vivacious and – behind a Lancastrian burr that
survived her upbringing in Devon – a passionate environmentalist. She seems unfazed about sailing slap bang into the
middle of the watery skip of the world.
“I can’t wait to get there,” she says. “Being in the middle of the ocean puts you back in your place – if you’re not
responsive, you don’t survive. It makes you think hard about how you consume.”
However, she readily concedes that it is easy for the layman to ask: “So what?” Some might be tempted to argue that
the rubbish has to end up somewhere, and that the ocean is no worse than landfill. Herein lies the main danger: plastic
does not biodegrade, but when exposed to sunlight it photo-degrades, breaking down into smaller and smaller particles,
and finally to “nurdles”, the industry name for the tiny grains that are the building blocks of most modern plastics. These
tiny particles are not harmful on their own, but they are very absorbent, and soak up waterborne toxins, such as
pesticides and cooling agents. These nurdles, now saturated in poisons, are eaten by filter-feeders at the very bottom
of the food chain, and then make their way up it.
The scale of the toxin problem is unknown. Although plastics have now been around for a century, their use has only
been really widespread for 50 years. Also, the threat is not only from food – marine extracts are used in countless
other products too: particularly cosmetics. Since there are so many possible routes for toxins from these plastics to
enter our food chain, there has yet to be an in-depth scientific study of their possible effect on humans. But these
particles are certainly killing marine life: the UN estimates that more than one million birds and 100,000 mammals die
every year from plastics – by poisoning, entanglement and choking. There are also studies under way investigating the
possible connection between a rise in fertility problems and cancers, and the proliferation of plastic in the ocean.
The solution is equally confounding – there is just so much junk. Most experts agree that the real change needs to come
above ground, from people taking more responsibility for their dumping.
As Ms Royle says: “The four worst-offending plastics – carrier bags, bottle-tops, bottles and styrofoam – are some we
could easily do without, with a bit more thought. It’s just about making the effort to change our habits: not getting chips
in a styrofoam container, reusing carrier bags – small things.”
There are some – led by the renowned American environmentalist and National Geographic Explorer-at-large Sylvia
Earle– who think that we should simply try not to use plastics at all. Ms Royle dismisses this approach: “Plastic is a
part of our world, and it’s hugely important.”
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Others would like the US government to embark on an operation to clean the ocean manually, using tankers to retrieve
the plastic, which could then be used as fuel.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” says Ms Royle. “It would take a tremendous amount of resources to sweep the
ocean. If you then burn the plastic, you create a lot of black carbon dioxide, which pollutes the atmosphere. I think the
solution has to come from the shore.” She points out that San Francisco, the city closest to the Great Pacific Patch,
has successfully implemented policies to stop people using wasteful plastics. “If they can do it, so can we. We just
need to stop all this dumb usage.”
Dr Boxall is decidedly less optimistic: “There is nothing we can do,” he says. “It’s too big. It’s here to stay. It’s like
nuclear waste. Even an oil spillage, disastrous as it is, eventually breaks down. Plastic doesn’t. We’ve simply got to
become better about how we dispose of waste.”
The Plastiki team hopes its voyage can make a difference, however small. But until something drastically changes –
particularly in developing countries, such as China and Brazil – the ocean will continue to bear the brunt of our wasteful
ways with plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and its growing imitators around the world, will continue to sprawl.
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Houston
04/02/2010 12:44 AM
GREAT NEWS!!!
The rubbish collects itself into a compact area. Seems easy enough to gather it up that way.
Perhaps the dolts at Greenpeace should put their boats to better use.
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Peter Tortl
03/23/2010 11:53 AM
What a load of tosh
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craig dyer
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