The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

We’ve been steadily increasing our blogroll and miscellaneous links this past week.

We’d love to hear some new recommendations for green/eco/sustainable news, blogs and technologies, media coverage and anything else relative to what we’re interested in here.  We’ll gladly consider reciprocating links back to your own site if that’s something you’re interested in.

Contact us anytime.

We’re looking for any and all related imagery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, both east and west.

If you have any images or video or know of any sources worth recommending, please let us know, especially if they’re royalty free. We’re also looking for any related news articles, websites, blogs, or any other format.

If you have any leads or ideas, we’d greatly appreciate it if you shared them;  we’ll be happy to reciprocate trade in links, blog mentions or some other form of barter relative to our work here.

This week Green Drinks hosts some very special guests at the Culver City chapter, hosted by the Living Green store.

We mention this here because they have some very special guests this week, actually tonight in fact. We highly recommend you check it out, it’s a great networking night hosted by Barent Roth and friends.

Here’s all the details:
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“As LA Green Drinks grows we want to continue to improve the experience of each event.
This month we experiment with a raffle and a short informal presentation format with some very special guests-

Join us in welcoming back two crew members of the Alguita research vessel,
Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen!

Anna and Marcus will talk briefly about their recent trip and present samples of the floating trash they collected while sailing. We will have a Q&A after their presentation and then they will both be available for further discussion.

The Alguita Research Vessel has just returned from studying the enormous swirling debris of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean, a “Plastic Soup” which has now grown to TWICE the size of the U.S.!
www.orvalguita.blogspot.com

This month LA Green Drinks will be raising money for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, the environmental non-profit organization who chartered the oceanic voyage into the floating trash.
www.algalita.org

Algalita Marine Research Foundation was founded in Long Beach, California by Captain Charles Moore in 1994, and is dedicated to the preservation of the marine environment. With the help of the chartered research vessel, the ORV Alguita, AMRF is actively engaged in innovative research, education programs, and restoration of the marine environment.

Marcus Eriksen, Algalita’s Director of Research and Education, has been deeply involved in plastic marine debris issues since rafting down the length of the Mississippi River on a boat made from recycled plastic bottles. Marcus has given presentations about marine debris issues to schools and communities all over the country, and will continue his public education upon his return, with samples and data “hot off the gyre”.

Anna Cummins - Algalita’s Education Advisor and lone female on board. While working for a marine conservation organization in 2004, Anna met Charles Moore and joined joined Algalita on a research trip to Guadalupe Island. She was forever changed by this opportunity to learn first hand about the far reaching, ecological impacts of disposable plastics.

Thursday, March 6th, 2008
7pm – 10pm
$5 suggested donation
www.livinggreen.com

We emailed Algalita for some more details and confirmation on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s existence and here’s the explanation we received from Marieta Francis, the Director of Operations at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation:

“Thank you for contacting us. Yes, there is an area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean referred to as a “Garbage Patch”. The accumulation of plastic and debris in this area has been researched by our foundation since 1999. You can find information about it on our website - www.algalita.org - both in the Research section and also in the 2008 Gyre Voyage blog on the home page.

It is not something that can be cleaned up. In fact, most of the debris is small and spread out over the surface of the ocean.

We have images of the debris under water, and groups we put together for tagging on the surface. You need to understand that the ocean is a liquid medium, and objects do not pile up on top of it, rather, they become submerged. While we do see buoys, television tubes and soap bottles, etc, they are not piled up in a group for photographing. The majority of the debris consists of small plastic fragments and broken objects just below the surface, which are obscured by surface wavelets when observed from any angle but directly above.

The concept of a “trash island” to describe this phenomenon was originally coined by Pravda and picked up by other European media, who showed an artists drawing of a mountain of trash. This is not an accurate depiction. The enormous accumulation zones for plastic debris are better described as “trash vortexes,” and except for fishing buoys do not appear above the ocean surface. They are also referred to as the “Eastern and Western Garbage Patches,” although we prefer vortex because the word “patch” does not do justice to their more or less million square mile size.”

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Wow. Let us repeat that very last little bit: “More or less million square mile size.”

And regarding the official word on cleanup: “It is not something that can be cleaned up” - we’re still not convinced it can’t be cleaned up. With enough money and motivation, there has to be a solution out there and we will do our best to help find it.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is really, truly unconscionable.

Whether it actually exists is largely questioned by some, while others feel its existence is indisputable. Either way, it blows our minds that nearly every single article we’ve come across in our research states that “There’s nothing we can do about it now…” (Eriksen, October 19, 2007). What kind of asinine, uncaring and lazy response is this?

In case you haven’t yet heard of this man-made atrocity, there is many claim, a collection of human waste (mostly plastic trash), that has piled up into a floating island (some say two islands), twice the size of Texas, about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco. What’s even more astounding to us, is that this has been known to exist for the better part of half a century now (though it was until the last few decades that it’s neared its current size).

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle states:

“Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans.”

This is just totally unacceptable.

We can no longer, in good conscience, continue to write off this horrendous creation and let it continue unabated. To that end, we have begun this website with the hope to evolve into the official, leading source of information, activism and action against this atrocity. In the coming months, we plan to raise funds to start dismantling this floating island of trash, generate significant publicity, donate hundreds if not thousands of hours and dollars, to turn the tides on this.

The GreatPacificGarbagePatch.com will serve as our central focus on what we hope grows into a massive wide effort to eradicate this abysmal by-product of our global industries. We hope that you will join us in our efforts, in whatever way you can.

Stay tuned for more info including a donation system and much more.