Re: [Paddlewise] Pacific Gyre's bobbing boobs

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 6:08 AM, skimmer <skimmer_at_enter.net> wrote:

> In the Atlantic, we have the Sargasso Sea. Is there a similar Gyre
> in the north Pacific where floating debris accumulates for endless
> decades? I have heard comments from trans-pacific sailors about
> the endless miles of floating junk they have encountered.
>
>
Yes, there certainly is. Here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

There have been a few documentaries about a guy who goes out to the patch in
his trawler but almost none of them talk about the garbage as coming from
ships. The ones I've watched assume that all the garbage comes from
land-based sources. I'm a bit skeptical of the statistic that 80% comes from
land-based sources, actually (as claimed in the Wikipedia article). It's not
uncommon for container ships to lose quite a few of their containers on a
trip across from Asia to the North American ports. I suspect that most of
the garbage comes from those.

However, ships at sea can also simply throw their trash overboard. They are
supposed to weight the plastic bags down so they sink but I have no doubt
that many ships ignore that.

Anyway, for what it's worth, there are now two documented trashpits in the
northern oceans. I suspect there is something in the southern ocean too.

Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
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