JUN 28

Is there a way to begin cleaning this up? Is the technology available to do so? Is any country on earth trying to do anything about this?

It is difficult to imagine how much work it would take to remove the trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As an environmental scientist, there is nothing as detrimental to our oceans and the animal life that resides at or near these garbage collection sites. Since these sites are continuously moving (with the currents), an accurate, daily monitoring of these garbage patches would be needed in order to make clean up efficient...that is both expensive and would need to be internationally accepted. Unfortunately, the trash that has made it into these patches is not exclusively "American" and other cultures think differently about the role that the oceans play in their everyday lives. Case in point: China and its inland provinces. They expel a high concentration of trash into the ocean regions by allowing it to flow from their rivers into the ocean environments. Attempting to inform millions of people about how their actions are hurting an ecosystem 500 miles away is difficult from a social standpoint.

The way this garbage can be cleaned, to my knowledge, is simply by removing it from the ocean. Seems simple enough, predominately because the trash rests on top of the current (or at the surface of the water line) and is "clumped" together. Barges with the ability to hoist the trash into their collection bunkers would be needed on a grand scale. This is expensive and there are not enough ships to help with this cause.

I personally believe that all governments need to stop allowing their waste disposal companies to dump in ocean environments and that there should be steps to educate the poor communities in ALL nations about what to do with their trash and their ability to make the world around them better.

I am forever optimistic.

I feel like I read recently that the patch in the pacific was about the size of Texas. Can anyone confirm?

If so, I can definitely see how it would take a lot of time and money to have barges scoop it all up and haul away.

This is really horrible to see such garbage patches...
these countries really need to be educated specially CHINA....
i think firstly the presidents of all the countries should look after the disposing of the trash by not dumping it into the ocean...and you say it's expensive? then i will say rather than spending billions in sports(specially football), etc put those money in these environmental issues....

The issue was brought home to me last year in a most dramatic fashion after a severe East Coast low pressure system wrought havoc to the Australian coastline. Apart from causing severe beach erosion the storm surge was able to deposit plastic garbage high into the mouths of the many creeks which drain into the sea. In one creek I visited, the plastic was piled into mounds several feet high. I spent several hours photographing the abomination and examining the material. The examination was interesting in itself because most of the plastic, although weathered still had legible writing and logos. A rough breakdown showed that a relatively small percentage originated locally (perhaps 10%), most came from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines and China. One of the Chinese articles cracked me up - it was a bottled water container whose brand was "NASA Water", complete with a fake NASA logo.

I have lived all my life on the coast, and have never seen anything remotely like this before.
I guess that the southwards moving E. Australian current (i.e. the 'Finding Nemo' current) had transported this material from Asia and it was on its way to the Southern Ocean when the tropical low diverted it onto the coast.

I don't see any solution to this. The political process has failed us with respect to bigger issues like carbon reduction so I can't see how anything will happen with this until the pollution causes a crash in fish stocks that humans depend upon (when of course will be too late).

...Seriously. I'm only being mostly facetious. But, if we want to remove this stuff from our oceans (hell, we NEED to remove this stuff), then attack the problem though the wallets of businesses. Create a salvaging operation that mines the gyres for material. If it can be sorted for usefulness (I'm under the impression the stuff is mostly plastics), collect it, powder the material that can be recycled and ship to manufacturers who want to use recycled source material in their products.

The Zaballeen people in Egypt already do operations like this (they make their living by collecting garbage and recycling most of it), and they're reputed to be able to recycle upwards of 80% of the garbage they take in.

Ships are expensive to maintain, I realize, so this might not be a "money-maker", but it would get this crap out of the oceans.

But, wouldn't it be funny to have recycled all of this stuff, made it into new products and then sell it back to the people who tossed it into the ocean to begin with?

It would be very difficult for the project to be funded.

And hauling 'trash' for sale isn't going to cover the fuel bills in my opinion. Perhaps a gasification point at the source to turn plastic to heavyoil? Then it could be used to sustain itself? And allow for more intensive cleanup without all the travel.
- T

I think cleaning up this mess needs a lot of time and help of many volunteers. Environmental services are sometimes expensive so huge number of volunteers are necessary.

I lived in Tanzania for 8 months and was renting a newly built house western type but when if came to garbage disposal I had to follow the local customs of making a hole in the ground outside my home, in the garden area and put everything there, plastic and tin cans included. To get rid of plastics, blue small shopping bags,water bottles etc, they had to be burned, that was the locals did. I lived in a small costal town, with local authorities inefficient and plagued with the usual corruption. They had no public garbage collection thats why they were simply burning it. The poorer part of the town(majority) had no ranning water or electricity and if they had, it was often cut off because they could not pay.
For cooking and illumination they were using karosene and charcoal or they were going to bed after sundown (7.00 - 8.00pm)and getting up at 5.00 - 5.30am to start work. I was there for a local enviromental project but like the garbage it went up in smoke thanks to the local corrupted small bureaucrats.
after all this would like to know what is the pollution level of burning plastics and other rubbish in the open? and danger to health to people who practice it?

We have skimmers, we have wind/solar abilities that are tried and true. Put a large platform out there, and instead of lifting and moving it, net/direct it to a platform that skims/sorts and recycles it into material that various manufacturers/governments will purchase!

If we know that there will be a forever recurring issue in the gyre locations, and that it is basically impossible for communities to be educated on their impact to ecosystems millions of miles away, then have something in the gyre that can make a good thing out of a bad situation!

The large part of the problem isn't with the large plastic/trash, it is with the photo degraded plastics that so closely resemble food stocks for marine life. This breakdown takes quite a long time to happen. If we have something collecting the large plastic debris before it gets the chance to degrade, then the problem would be much less severe on the ecosystem. A gallon milk jug is unsightly in the middle of the ocean, but no sea turtle/gull is going to try to eat it. But once it has broken down into minute pieces, it looks to much like foodstock, and those animals simply can't resist.

I am over simplifying of course, but it certainly isn't as complicated as we are led to believe....it just isn't a big $$ maker, so no one wants to do it.

Just my 2c

smooter

United Arab Emerates, 50% of the Camels are found dead in the desert of an average with 60Lbs of Plastic in their stomachs, UAE is making plastic bags illegal.
Bangladesh , impoverished, over populated outlawed Plastic bags.CA Gov. voted against outlawing plastic bags, reason to protect labor!Most bags are made in China! What the heck!San Diego, Cruise ships dump 20 Million Tons of Garbage off shore CA coast, all along the route to Alaska, South America.Some Cruise lines have converted to recycling and stopped dumping. Boycot the Cruisers out of san Diego NOW. US Navy adopted clean practices years ago why can't All ships?? San Francisco Gov, implemented No Plastic bags. The Oceans are polluted with plastic all over the globe , I scuba dived all over Asia , Australia . All asian countries ,inclusive Singapore , dump garbage through drainig rain water ,Monsun rains are instsnt floods , washing the garbage from low lying areas into the oceans, India is a garbage pile from coast to coast, sad to see modern Office towers and Millions living in lean too's next door w/o any sanitation , the Ganges river is an open sewer draining into the Indian Ocean . the Indian Gov. is totally inept, Goa beaches are also polluted, one finds Indian garbage all over the Indian diving spots and also in the Indian ocean were garbage co mingles with African garbage. All our Oceans are choking with out of sight ,out of mind attitudes, It is predicted that by 2050 there will be no life left in the oceans. How we are going to feed by than a 15 Billion Global population is the big question. India has no control of their rate of birth , statistics show that last year India had 88 Mil babies, China controls each family to 2 per. South America needs to adopt the Chinese system as does the USA.Europe is totally over Populated, take Germany fought to world wars to reach for living space for it's people, 84 Million Germans life in an area a bit smaller than California. germany is well aware of it's need to recycle , their model is bar none, No excess wrapping, plastic etc, allowed, Stores have to offer by type recycling bins, garbage is sorted by type and identified as such to be picked up accordingly,children are tought in school to recycled and given a background "WHY" a good start. However there are still issues.The USA is slowly falling behind in leading the world, if we stop moving forward we will follow the path of other lost Empires. can anybody imagine American illegal workers in China/ yes I can, study history and than do not repeat it!Cleaning our living space now or suffer the consequences!

Even if we had the resources to clean up the garbage patches it would be almost nearly impossible to clean up the micro plastics that stem from plastic bags and the like. Adaptability of the eco systems and food chain will inevitably either wipe out species or cause major sickness among wildlife. Since these garbage patches are in international waters I would be surprised if any country would actually stand up and take a stand to help clean it up...at the end of the day I am sure government would think the costs would outweigh the benefits.