Many of us heard that, it as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) and some of us knew it as; it is a sprawling mass of plastic floating in the middle of the ocean or as the “plastic island”.
This Great Pacific Garbage Patch is also known as the “Pacific trash vortex”. It is a massive collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean near Hawaii and California. Due to the North Pacific sub-tropical gyre (ocean gyre is a system of circular ocean currents), this massive garbage patch moves here and there.
The reason for the enormous waste fix arrangement is, “Accumulation of plastics”. The marine debris fundamentally comprises of buoyant-floating plastics and imperceptible smaller scale plastics which have been corrupted by the impacts of sun, waves and marine life. Nearly numerous sorts of plastics are not bio degradable, they breakdown into more minor and more minor pieces.
Many people’s imagination about this garbage patch is, as an image of an island of trash floating on the ocean. But it is made up of tiny bits of plastics called micro plastics which are invisible to our naked eyes. It makes the ocean water looks like a cloudy soup. This cloudy soup contains mostly fishing gears and shoes as its ingredients. Ecologists and oceanographers say that 70% of the marine debris sinks to the bottom of the ocean, beneath this great garbage patch.
According to the 2020 updates, this massive GPGP covers near 1.6 million square kilometers. This area is nearly equal to the 3 times of size of France. 80 000 tons of plastic is currently floating in GPGP. The mass concentration of micro plastic increases exponentially since 1970s.This Great Pacific Garbage Patch affects the marine environment, marine organisms as well as humans. This plastic pollution causes high risks to the safety and health of marine animals and health and economic implications for humans.
As we are the polluters, destroys the natural systems, it comes back to us as a high toxic by bio accumulation. When plastic enters marine food web, it will contaminate human food chain at a higher risk. Many organizations are involved in the cleanup activities of these marine plastics. They have estimated that, it costs 13 billion dollars per year.
As a responsible human being, we must try to reduce or eliminate the use of plastics, maximum recycling and move to green products to sustain our earth for our future generations to survive.
✍️ Article by Nilakshika Thirukumaran
💻 Design by Anton Raveen
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