http://www.physorg.com/news112248742.html
Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific
An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.
Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.
The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.
“At this point, cleaning it up isn’t an option,” Parry said. “It’s just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues.”
Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said.
Saw this article on PsyOrg. Thought it was odd for them to have a story that barely backs up what it says and has little to no extra information. But luckily someone posted a good article in the comments section.
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Trashing-Oceans-Plastic4nov02.htm
A. 1990 Running shoes spill
B. 2002 Garbage strip
C. 2000 Plastic bag spill
D. Shoes found
E. Eastern Garbage Patch
At the eye of the gyre, plastic reaches concentrations of a million pieces per square mile. Researchers have mapped a giant spill of bags and a mile-long strip of wind-driven garbage.
F. Caught in a gyre
Some of the plastic drifting in the North Pacific is swept to shore, like the thousands of Nike shoes that washed up in the Pacific Northwest. But much is trapped by calm winds and sluggish water within the North Pacific’s loop of currents.
