North Pacific Gyre Research Paper

More than 750,000 pieces of microplastic can be found in just one square kilometer of it. Approximately 80 percent of its debris comes from land, 10 percent is made up of over 700,000 tons of commercial fishing nets, and the remaining 10 percent consists miscellaneous objects discarded by recreational and commercial ships. What is it? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The garbage patch lies in the Pacific Ocean between the west coasts of America and the East coasts of Asia. Because the effects on marine life caused by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are detrimental to their habitat, diet, and

Marine debris is more than ugly, it kills. There are two proposed plans to cleanup the North Pacific Garbage Island. An island that is made of garbage, primarily plastic. It is over 100 kilometers wide. That is an unbelievable amount of trash. That trash island is floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and California. It has been spun together over time by currents, and the atmospheric pressure in the middle of the ocean is stronger than average. The island’s plastic has melted together, creating a bed of plastic for the rest of the trash to lie on. A a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

Everybody throws away trash with little or no thought about where it’s going. What you might not know is that a lot of trash goes into our ocean. You may think it is not a big deal and that it’s just a little bit of trash in a really big ocean, but it’s not just a little bit of trash. In fact, it’s a whole lot. There is a place between California and Hawaii called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, but is better known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. This area is the largest landfill in the world and is completely in the ocean. What are the effects of the landfill on the environment and how can it be prevented and rehabilitated to its original state?

The great pacific garbage patch, or garbage island, as many refer to it, is a region made up entirely of waste. It is around 20 million square kilometers (7.7 square miles) in size. This is the result of careless sailors and beachgoers constantly throwing what they do not want to hold on to into the ocean. The litter gets carried through a variety of currents moving in a clockwise direction into the north pacific subtropical gyre. There, it all adds up to form a pile of garbage twice the size of texas.[8]

Ocean currents corral trillions of decomposing plastic items and other trash into gigantic, swirling garbage patches (Pacific Trash Vortex)

Toxic: Garbage Island, a documentary by Vice Magazine, goes to show the carelessness of humans, more so in the developed world. Vice does this by sending a crew of a few of their journalists on a boat with a scientist and two men who control the boat to take a firsthand look at the Northern Gyre in the Pacific Ocean. Gyres are known to be large, swirling masses of garbage found floating on the surface of the ocean in various places where tides interact with each other, but Vice dives into detail by showing that gyres are not what people perceive them to be, gyres are virtually invisible until samples of the water are taken and drained. The crew from Vice expects exactly what is perceived, and they are shocked when they see the truth and begin

More than six million tons of garbage finds it’s way into the oceans. Due to the currents, the garbage ends up in two different locations. Several hundred miles off the coast of Japan lies the Western Garbage Patch, and close to California lies the second patch, known as the Eastern Garbage Patch. Together these two patches of garbage mix to form the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Society tends to blame the fisherman for the trash that turns into marine debris. They are wrong. According to the California Coastal Commission, “Only 20% of the items found in the ocean can be linked to ocean-based sources, like commercial fishing vessels, cargo fish or pleasure cruise ships. The remainder (80%) is due to land based sources like litter (from pedestrians, motorists, beaches visitor), industrial discharges (in the form of plastic pellets and powders), and garbage management.”. Fisherman and other trained workers in the oceans are not the only

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.

The Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the five oceans in the world. It is home to many fish and other creatures. It is one of the five oceans that actually intrigue me. My questions were, How big is the ocean itself, what life lives here, and the trade routes of this ocean.

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

Plastic debris pollution in the marine environment is greatest in oceanographic convergences and eddies, where plastic bits accumulate (Day 1986). Gyres make up a large proportion, approximately seventy-five percent, of what we refer to as the open ocean, or the area of the ocean that does not consist of coastal areas. Gyres are an area of junction that forces plastic into a central area with little to no wind and current influence. In oceanography, a subtropical gyre is a connected system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern. Typically they form in large open ocean areas. A large volume of high-pressure air

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

The oceans of the world seem to be under attack from mankind and nature itself. Global warming is causing the melting of the polar ice causing the level of the oceans to rise. Garbage patches of plastic particles are floating in huge areas with some settling to the ocean floor. Acidification of the ocean water from fertilizer use is causing large so called dead zones where oxygen deprivation kills off plant and aquatic life. Many areas of the ocean have been dumping grounds for garbage, whether sludge like, solid, or chemical in nature. This paper will concentrate on the dead zones of the oceans, their causes, and the possible solutions to this problem.

Pacific Ocean. It is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretching 10 million miles from