All at sea

Have you heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Or any other oceanic garbage patches, for that matter? According to Jennifer Gabrys’ essay Monitoring and Remediating a Garbage Patch, there’s a number of substantial convergences of plastic debris in our oceans, referred to as “garbage patches”. The Great Pacific Garbage patch is said to be up to three times the size of Texas. Commonly referred to by scientists as the Eastern Pacific Trash Vortex, it is located in a stretch of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California.

Garbage patches are able to form in still waters caused by ocean gyres — systems of circular ocean currents created by global wind patterns and the Earth’s rotation. Gyres make a perfect home for large deposits of flotsam.

Sailors have known about the seaweed-filled Sargasso Sea — part of the North Atlantic Gyre — for many centuries, but the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was first identified in 1997 by oceanographer Charles Moore. He has since dedicated much of his time and energy to raising awareness of the marine pollution issues