The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch By: Niamh Leah Frances Edmonstone
Imagine one day the whole ocean turning into a giant patch of toxic trash. People have been trashing the ocean for years, but now there is too much trash out there and it is destroying the environment and killing the marine life. If we don 't try to stop this issue from escalating in the near future, The Great Pacific Garbage Patches size will increase rapidly and have huge effects on the planet we live on. Charles Moore, an oceanographer and a yacht racer, discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997 after he had competed in a yacht race ("National Geographic Education"). The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in the North Pacific Ocean somewhere between Hawaii and California. The size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is unknown but is said to be the two times the size of the state of Texas in the USA, and it is continuously growing. Eighty percent of the trash is land run, which means the trash has been littered somewhere in the world and has floated or has been blown onto the trash patch. Ships have dumped the other twenty percent of the trash ("National Geographic Education"). It is said that there is around 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer ("Drowning in Plastic."). All the trash is all in a giant dump because of a gyre. A gyre is a current system in the ocean, which pulls water from one part of the ocean to another ("National Geographic Education"). The gyre has pulled all that trash into a vortex, a large swirling pool of water, which has trapped all of the trash i3n one place. The trash has a huge effect on the wildlife around the area where the vortex is located. For instance, turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, which are part of their diet while birds think that bottle caps are fish (Heimbuch). Fish and whales, seabirds and other marine life can get stuck in nets and six pack rings ("Briney"). The birds and turtles are in danger of choking or starving
Imagine one day the whole ocean turning into a giant patch of toxic trash. People have been trashing the ocean for years, but now there is too much trash out there and it is destroying the environment and killing the marine life. If we don 't try to stop this issue from escalating in the near future, The Great Pacific Garbage Patches size will increase rapidly and have huge effects on the planet we live on. Charles Moore, an oceanographer and a yacht racer, discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997 after he had competed in a yacht race ("National Geographic Education"). The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in the North Pacific Ocean somewhere between Hawaii and California. The size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is unknown but is said to be the two times the size of the state of Texas in the USA, and it is continuously growing. Eighty percent of the trash is land run, which means the trash has been littered somewhere in the world and has floated or has been blown onto the trash patch. Ships have dumped the other twenty percent of the trash ("National Geographic Education"). It is said that there is around 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer ("Drowning in Plastic."). All the trash is all in a giant dump because of a gyre. A gyre is a current system in the ocean, which pulls water from one part of the ocean to another ("National Geographic Education"). The gyre has pulled all that trash into a vortex, a large swirling pool of water, which has trapped all of the trash i3n one place. The trash has a huge effect on the wildlife around the area where the vortex is located. For instance, turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, which are part of their diet while birds think that bottle caps are fish (Heimbuch). Fish and whales, seabirds and other marine life can get stuck in nets and six pack rings ("Briney"). The birds and turtles are in danger of choking or starving
Cited: "Algalita History." Algalita Marine Research Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://www.algalita.org/aboutus/history.html> July 2008. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10theworldslargestdump>. "Ocean Dumping." Ocean Dumping. Advameg, Inc., 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.pollutionissues.com/NaPh/OceanDumping.html> "Ocean Plastic Pollution and How You Can Help." Greenpeace International. N.p., 30 Oct. 2006. Web. 28 Feb. 2013