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In your groups:
- Read through information on handout and the resources on this page

-  Work through questions on your worksheet
-  Choose one student from each group to negotiate with other parties
-  Present plan to class
Class to vote on best plan

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China Leads in Contributions to Pacific Garbage Patch

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China Leads in Contributions to Pacific Garbage Patch

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http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/02/china-leads-plastic-donations-pacific-garbage-patch/

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'Seabin' designed by Australian surfers to clean up marinas, reduce ocean pollution

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'Seabin' designed by Australian surfers to clean up marinas, reduce ocean pollution

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-20/seabin-designed-by-australian-surfers-to-start-cleaning-up-ocean/7044174

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What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

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What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan. The patch is actually comprised of:

1. The Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan

2. The Eastern Garbage Patch,  between Hawaii and California.

For many people, the idea of a “garbage patch” conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. However, microplastics can’t always be seen by the naked eye. Even satellite imagery doesn’t show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes.

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How could we clean up the garbage patch?

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How could we clean up the garbage patch?

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Charles Moore, the man who discovered the vortex, says cleaning up the garbage patch would “bankrupt any country” that tried it.

Cleaning up marine debris is not as easy as it sounds. Many microplastics are the same size as small sea animals, so nets designed to scoop up trash would catch these creatures as well. Even if we could design nets that would just catch garbage, the size of the oceans makes this job far too time-consuming to consider. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean.

It may not be cost-effective to skim the surface of the entire ocean. Even a cleanup focusing on “garbage patches” would be a tremendous challenge. Keep in mind these points:

-  Concentration areas move and change throughout the year

- These areas are typically very large
-  The marine debris is not distributed evenly within these areas
-  Modes of transport and cleanup will likely require fuel of some sort

-  Most of the marine debris found in these areas is small bits of plastic

This all adds up to a bigger challenge than even sifting beach sand to remove bits of marine debris. In some areas where marine debris concentrates, so does marine life. This makes simple skimming the debris risky—more harm than good may be caused. Remember that much of our ocean life is in the microscopic size range.

Analysis by an oceanographer and undergraduate physics student suggests that targeting the patch itself is not the most efficient way to clean up the oceans:
-  The largest flow of plastics is actually off the coasts, where it enters the oceans.

-  You can remove the plastics before they have had a chance to do any harm – plastics in the patch have travelled a long way and potentially already done a lot of harm.

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Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which die of starvation or ruptured organs.

Seals and other marine mammals are especially at risk. They can get entangled in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded more often because of their low cost. Seals and other mammals often drown in these forgotten nets—a phenomenon known as “ghost fishing.”

Marine debris can also disturb marine food webs in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. As microplastics and other trash collect on or near the surface of the ocean, they block sunlight from reaching plankton and algae below. Algae and plankton are the most common autotrophs, or producers, in the marine food web. Autotrophs are organisms that can produce their own nutrients from oxygen, carbon, and sunlight.

If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change. Animals that feed on algae and plankton, such as fish and turtles, will have less food. If populations of those animals decrease, there will be less food for apex predators such as tuna, sharks, and whales. Eventually, seafood becomes less available and more expensive for people.

These dangers are compounded by the fact that plastics both leach out and absorb harmful pollutants. As plastics break down through photodegradation, they leach out colorants and chemicals that have been linked to environmental and health problems. Conversely, plastics can also absorb pollutants from the seawater. These chemicals can then enter the food chain when consumed by marine life.

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About 80% of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from land-based activities in North America and Asia. Trash from the coast of North America takes about six years to reach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, while trash from Japan and other Asian countries takes about a year.

The remaining 20% of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from boaters, offshore oil rigs, and large cargo ships that dump or lose debris directly into the water. The majority of this debris—about 705,000 tons—is fishing nets. More unusual items, such as computer monitors and LEGOs, come from dropped shipping containers.

While many different types of trash enter the ocean, plastics (e.g. plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, Styrofoam cups) make up the majority of marine debris for two reasons. First, plastic’s durability, low cost, and malleability mean that it’s being used in more and more consumer and industrial products. Second, plastic goods do not biodegrade but instead break down into smaller pieces.