The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

By Trash Talk on Jun 10, 09 12:30 PM

As regular reader know by now I am not a fan of disposable plastic.

If you need to see any more evidence of why plastic packaging and our disposable society is not such a great idea, you need to see - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Captain Charles Moore the sailor who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch recently gave a presentation at the TED Cenference, see the link at the bottom of this article.

The Great Pacific Garbage patch is a huge (some estimate it is twice the size of Texas) floating sea of plastic rubbish. There are large pieces of plastic in the patch but mostly it is a soup of tiny bits of plastic, the broken remains of plastic bags, bottle and other plastics that break up as they photo degrade. In many places the amount of plastic outnumbers the zooplankton (the tiny animals that form the bottom of the food chain in the sea).

Good magazine have produced a large info-graphic showing the Patch, you can see it here: http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/web/0905/trans0509throughthegyre.html

Depressing stuff - show it to anyone who is still using plastic shopping bags and buying plastic bottles.

To see Captain Moore speak go here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html