The New Green Economy

It is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a colossal, swirling mass of plastic and other marine debris located in the northern Pacific Ocean.  The debris has been sucked into the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, and is estimated to be anywhere from twice the size of the state of Texas to as large as Canada.

The worlds’ oceans contain a series of converging currents called gyres. These currents create natural swirling vortexes that play a vital role in keeping global temperatures in check. Gyres move in a clockwise pattern, allowing heat to be transferred towards the earth’s poles, while simultaneously cooling tropical regions as cold air is sucked towards the equator.

Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), studies the impact of plastics on the world’s oceans. Moore believes the majority of the North Pacific Gyre, an area roughly twice the size of the United States, to be laden with plastics and other debris. The sheer size of the Garbage Patch should make it an easy target for aerial and satellite photography, but an actual photo has proven hard to find. AMRF has described the Garbage Patch as “a plastic soup…[that] is distributed throughout the water column as well as in the sediment on the sea floor,” making it virtually unperceivable from the air.¹

It was hoped that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was one-of-a-kind phenomenon, but studies have revealed another massive clump of plastics and other marine debris swirling in the Atlantic Ocean. The second patch has been tagged "The Atlantic Garbage Patch" after its well known counterpart located in the Pacific.