How has the Great Pacific Garbage Patch affected marine life in the surrounding waters?

Over the years many animals have been affected by the trash in the ocean. The trash can affect the animals by making animals eat and pick up plastic, by trapping animals in a net, and by cutting their wounds. The trash is causing animals to die, mainly from the plastic objects and from getting cut by trash or by getting stuck in the trash. Some animals mistake plastic for food. When the animals eat the plastic their organs can get ruptured. In addition to that, animals mistake plastic for food because the plastic smells like krill (a small fish that is found in the ocean, and a fish that is eaten by some animals). Another reason why animals die is because of ghost gear. Ghost gear is what people call fishing supplies that were thrown into

Solid waste like bags, foam, and other items dumped into the oceans from land or by ships at sea are frequently consumed, with often fatal effects, by marine mammals, fish, and birds that mistake it for food.

Most of the garbage, in the Pacific Garbage Patch, are different types of plastic. Unfortunately, unlike other materials, plastics take years to break down. Instead of biodegrading like organic materials, the plastics go through a process of photodegradation, which breaks the plastic into molecular size pieces. The sea life, unable to see the miniscule plastics, swallow them up. It has been shown that towards the top of the pyramid, humans are also consuming the plastics that the animals had once eaten.

The garbage in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t only harmful to the aquatic animals that live inside it, but to the surrounding marine life as well. Several birds who depend upon fishing as their source of food are in just as much danger as the fish who live in the water. As Katherine Cooney, from the New York Times, states, “An Environmental Protection Agency study showed that the chicks that died of those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs. Bottle caps, combs, golf tees, toothbrushes and even toy soldiers were found inside the birds.” Cooney is trying to show that the death of these innocent birds is undeniably due to the plastic found in their bodies. An approximated 200,000 of the 500,000 chicks born there each year died from dehydration and starvation (Cooney).

Recognizing them is difficult due to their small size and tone. Often these fragments are mistakes as rocks or large sediment. Many of the native aves in the area use minuscule stones as a deterioration method in their digestive process. Plastics, however, cannot be broken down by the bird's stomach acids alone, and therefore, the shards are unable to leave the bird's gullet. Lodged synthetics cause the bird to believe that it has had a proper meal, but because plastic carries no nutritional value, the fowls die of starvation. This effect is growing worldwide with one of it’s most infamous locations in the Great Pacific garbage patch, where it not only affects birds, but also turtles, fish, and seals. The plastic is able to move through trophic levels and cause bioaccumulation(Sylvia, 1996). Nonetheless, bioaccumulation of plastics in Utah wilderness is still low, but if this pattern continues to grow we will see a steady decline in the populational growth of the inhabitants in our wilderness( Debris,

In the article, "Plastic in Our Oceans", Kimberly Amaral discusses the everyday uses of plastic and how it can be beneficial to humans, but harmful to marine life. As fishermen casually dump waste overboard, animals mistake it for food sources, such as a turtle mistaking a plastic grocery bag for a jellyfish. From the trash brought out to sea, gyres, large circulations of water, carry the garbage through currents, spreading it to all over the ocean, specifically to the central gyre. Amaral notes common ways for marine life to die from plastic, which include entanglement by plastic rings, consumption of plastic bags and pellets which stuff the intestines and lead to health problems, and suffocation. As researchers today work hard to discover

Plastic comes in innumerable shapes and sizes; it is used for various purposes. We use it to bag our groceries, pay with it, drink from it, occasionally eat off it or unwrap it to get to food, etc. The functionality of plastic is continual and surrounds us, so what is the con of plastic? When plastic cups, bottles, and bags are abandoned in the street, the wind transports and the rain seizes them into storm gutters, tributaries and eventually the ocean. When rubbish and plastic originate from terrestrial territory and enters the sea it is swept away by an eddy vortex called the North Pacific Gyre. Charles Moore discovered the North Pacific Gyre, or also known as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in 1997. This garbage patch stretches hundreds of miles off the shoreline of California and Hawaii. Scientists estimated its size to be twofold the size of Texas or maybe even more substantial. This garbage patch contains some ten million tons of litter. According to Lindsey Blomberg, who wrote the article titled The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, writes, “What is known for certain is that the marine debris in the North Pacific Gyre is 80% plastic and it's mostly coming from land.” (1) Although the trash is in the ocean, it not only affects us but, wildlife on land or in sea too. Furthermost of the waste in the ocean consists of "microplastics" which according to Kitt Doucette, who wrote the article titled An Ocean Of Plastic is, “Larger chunks of waste that have been reduced to tiny

A large number of marine species are known to be harmed and/or killed by plastic debris, which jeopardize their survival, since many are already endangered by other forms of anthropogenic activities. Marine animals are affected through entanglement in and ingestion of plastic litter (Marine Debris). Less conspicuous forms, such as plastic pellets and “scrubbers” are also hazardous. To address the problem of plastic debris in the oceans is a difficult task, and a variety of approaches are required. According to research conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean each year. That is more than 38 million pounds a day. More than 85% of all the trash that is dumped comes from the world’s merchant shipping fleet. According to the same research, the United States is responsible for an estimated one- third of all the trash that is dumped into the ocean (Amaral). The reason this is still going on is because the majority of the trash that is dumped is in international waters. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that convened in 1982 defines territorial waters and international waters as: territorial waters are waters extending up to 12 nautical miles from a coastal state, and they are considered to be within the jurisdiction of that particular state or ‘territorial waters’ If oceans, seas, rivers or lakes extend beyond international boundaries and are not territorial waters, they are classed as

Society has become better acquainted with the dangers associated with pollution during recent years and people have started to adopt environmental attitudes as a result of learning more concerning the harm their actions can provoke to the natural world. The Pacific Trash Vortex is an area in the Pacific Ocean that contains a series of pollutants with most of it consisting of plastic. The area is twice the size of Texas and is killing millions of birds, animal, and fish as they are unable to distinguish between foods they can eat and things that are likely to cause their death.

In t­he broad expanse of the northern Pacific Ocean, there exists the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents. The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals. Due to its lack of large fish and gentle breezes, fishermen and­ s­ailors rarely travel through the gyre. But the area is filled with something besides plankton: trash, millions of pounds of it, most of it plastic. It's the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean.

Researches have found different routes that all the trash could take. According to the research by Erik van Sebilla, the trash doesn't seem to just stay in one garbage patch. Currently there are 5 major garbage patches in our ocean. Their are two in the Pacific, two in the Atlanic and there is just one the in the Indian Ocean. Sebilla stated that the the trash from the Indian Oceean to Southern Australia could end uop in the PAcific Ocean. Also the trash from Eastern South Africa most likely will end up in the Atlanic Ocean. The video demonstrates what the garbage patches are made up of. In this video it shows how most of the trash in the ocean is plastic, which never breaks down. Many wonder how and where all the trash came from. In an artical

It is 2016 and there is a lot of problems in this world. One of which are ocean's garbage patches. Well all five ocean have garage patches but the one who is bringing up more dangers in the ocean life the pacific ocean patch.

As humans we forget how much of what we do is polluting the Earth. Dumping trash on the side of the road because you are too lazy to throw it in the trash or recycles at home can be disastrous. People may forget that wind can pick up the plastic or other floating material into the ocean. Causing you to end up polluting the ocean with non-consumable things for animals. All that pollution from others from Japan to North America pollutes and it can all build up. The place with some of the largest trash in the world in the Pacific Trash Vortex.

In the documentary “Inside the Garbage of the World”, the main social problem being explained is that there has been a great influx of plastic and other type of garbage in oceans and their beaches. This buildup of pollution has largely affected the wildlife population ranging from animals on the beaches to the creatures of the ocean. In oceans, what is called ‘garbage patches’, a large buildup of garbage that flow to one area in the oceans, are being created. Approximately 50 percent of all plastic sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor but about 2 times that much is actually already on the ocean floor. In fact, according to the documentary, there is a garbage patch that is to the left of California that is the size of half of the United States. Each year, about 4.7 million tons of plastic goes in the ocean a year and it is estimated that by 2050, there will be another 33 billion tons of plastic added to the present amount. Eighty percent of the current pollution comes from the land. According to marine researchers, twice as much plastic debris is one the ocean floor than it was 10 years ago. In the futures, plastic will break down into smaller pieces of plastic, creating a bigger problem from the habitat. This plastic pollution is one of the leading cause for beach and ocean inhabiting creatures be extinct because animals are mistaking these plastic pieces for food. When scientist began to dissect beach animals such as birds, they discovered that at least fifteen pounds of

of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the exact size remains unknown. In addition, Doucette warns us that this patch contains more than ten million tons of waste. She describes the area to be a “fetid swamp of debris where tiny bits of decaying plastic outweigh zooplankton- one of the most prolific and abundant organisms on the planet- by a ration of six-to-one”(Doucette). It is now apparent that the amount of plastic particles residing in our oceans is damaging the natural habit and this trash is not going anywhere. Due to the currents in the ocean, plastic particles are