Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean

a reply to: Souljah

musta missed something in the links cos when i went there all is saw is some bloke in a wetsuit on the edge of the water and a couple of click pics of crappy ole rubbish on the shore ?

Update (of sorts)

There’s a country-sized problem in the north Pacific Ocean: a patch of trash has grown to the size of France. So the environmental charity Plastic Oceans Foundation has paired up with the news and entertainment publication LadBible to campaign for it to be recognized as an official country.

The campaign claims that, under Article 1 of the 1993 Montevideo Convention on the rights and duties of states, a country must be able to: define a territory, form a government, interact with other states, and have a permanent population. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has well-defined borders, and it’s easy to create a government and institutions for interacting with others. Now with former US vice president Al Gore signing up as the country’s first citizen and more than 100,000 signing the petition to be granted citizenship, the campaign has submitted its application earlier this month to the United Nations to recognize the Trash Isles as the world’s 196th country.

quartz.com, Sept. 18, 2017 - A pile of trash in the ocean has grown to the size of France—and some people want it recognized as a nation.

The country is called, "The Trash Isles" and Gore has a passport issued from there already! They also show photos of currency that have a denominations of "debris" (the photos show front and back of a "20 debris" note).

This is part marketing campaign (getting the North Pacific Gyre recognized as a nation) which I don't mind too much. The word needs to get out. But all the politicizing between polar opposites that has gripped even dear old ATS now has the Al Gore albatross around its neck. Which is a shame because there is so much to do than hurl invectives.

Well, the best news would be for the country to removed from the list of nations!

There are bunch of smart people here on ATS! I can already think of a few jokes... ok. No man is an island. There I said it. I think we need to have preventative measures to keep countries (yep) from dumping trash in the ocean. The plastic never breaks down. It just gets finely ground to smaller pieces. The ocean currents (called Gyres) carry it to large clumps. The North Pacific one is now the size of France.

Over on another thread, there is a company that is running a trial either late this year or early next that use the currents themselves to pickup the micro plastics in large pipes. So it is not all doom and gloom.

ETA: The Ocean Cleanup.
Original posted by horseplay: here.

I don't know how we could ever get rid of Styrofoam, unless we collectively pass laws to eliminate it. It has become an economic factor in fast-food containers and shipping packaging. A typical styro food container is around 10 times cheaper than recycled paper containers.

I try and ask for a paper container when I can, but so many establishments will just not even have them available.

This has got to be solved, or George Carlin's warnings will become reality. (he called this out 20 years ago).

BTW: The Atlantic must have similar, albeit smaller floating islands of this crap. Recently, on a cruise to Bermuda from Boston, I remember sitting for a few hours on the balcony as the ship sailed through some of the nastiest stuff you could imagine in the open ocean. Just about every type of floating garbage you could identify, and some... who the hell knows what it was...

a reply to: charlyv

Eeeeewww!

There are 5 Gyres out there. Maybe six. Each contain large amount of trash other than plastics.

Starting in the 80s they've been reformulating plastics. The Styrofoam has been made out of starch now for years. One thing we were taught (brain washed?) in school was: reduce, return, reuse, and recycle. I've stopped buying plastic bottles. I'm swapped over to glass or stainless steel (both not much better at breaking down but they do not end up in ocean either). It is other countries that indiscriminately dumping trash into the ocean. And all the cumulative amount of plastics swirling around out there.

The Ocean Cleanup group give me hope! They are shooting for half the plastic picked up in 5 years if they can scale. I hope they can reach their goals.

Then we need to be vigilant to keep plastics out of the ocean waters.

a reply to: charlyv

DP.

I have a thread out there about the South Pacific Garbage Patch. That is where I found out about the 5 Gyres. I knew it was out there but that day I got POd about what is going on to our planet. Thanks to all the replies, I calmed down a bit.

The topic deserves a nudge every now and then!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

The Styrofoam has been made out of starch now for years.

Yes, there has been great progress in replacing all those nasty styro packing "peanuts", however the starch process cannot handle hot or moist foods. So many fast food places, cafeterias and corporate lunch rooms still use the big plate sized styro containers with lids and styro cups. They have to go.

lets see You have a car you have a phone you ahve a pc you have running water and power and a home you rent or buy .
You have personal burned 10,000 gallons of gas already nd have added 200 gallons of oil to the oceans from your leaky cars .

90% of what you own is made from plastic am i missing anything ?
Humans are killing them Its my falt your falt and 7 billion other peoples falt .
So lets be real you dont care i dont care they dont care if you did you can park the car and turn off the pc now .
And so could I but tomorrow we will both be hear talking about how sad it is and how someone ( not us But someone should do something )
reap what you sow and it will be the grim reaper

a reply to: Souljah

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean

Yea well we can immediately discount the typical sales hype exaggerated description of the size of this clump a crap.

If this stuff is in one large dump, where is the problem in modifying a fleet of bulk carriers to go out there and 'harvest' all this stuff floating in the ocean just a wheat crop is harvested.

If its all in one place suddenly it makes the job much more practicable and less expensive.

What I do see is a very strong admission of total indifference to the environmental problems of the world by the worlds super rich, the elite etc.

The values of the super elite are eminently on display here. They are:

1 - war is always affordable
2 - to hell with the environment.

Perhaps if we put both of these things together we can conclude the elite take the view that depopulation of the earth will being monetary gains and cure the earths environmental problems at the same time.