The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a large collection of ocean garbage.

Like many people, I'd never heard of it until this past Earth Day.

It sounded like something straight out of a science fiction movie. An island of trash twice the size of Texas hanging out in the ocean, gaining size until it's large enough to seize the land and take over.

I imagined the remains of a litterbug's day at the beach: plastic retail bags, beer cans, and empty sunscreen bottles drifting a few miles off shore.

Wow, was I way off. Naive too, thinking it may not be too difficult to clean up.

Reduce Ocean Garbage

The E.P.A. estimated that only 6.8% of plastic generated in 2007 was recycled.

To help keep the trash vortex in the Pacific from growing, learn
the recycling numbers and start recycling plastic bottles and containers.

The powerful currents trap trash into a collective mass. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, an estimated 90% of marine pollution is plastic. Most of the plastic particles that make up the trash vortex are very small.

A team from the University of California's Scripps Institute of Oceanography recently returned from a trip to study the Pacific Trash Vortex. See Seaplex for information on their journey.