Plastic is wonderful material. It has so many uses, infinitely malleable to fit almost any need. And soooo durable. Plastics last hundreds, even thousands of years. That is their strength. Our weakness is that we design too much plastic to be simply “thrown away” -wherever “away” is. Plastics and oceans don’t go together. Water and oil don’t mix. But because of the way we design, use and dispose of plastic, a lot of it is ending up in our oceans, riding the seas for decades in ever widening gyres.

What’s a gyre?

An ocean gyre is a large system of rotating currents, related to large wind movements as the planet spins on its axis. It’s like drawing your hand through your bath water and watching the little swirls spin off each side, except these oceanic swirls are huge and the “hand” is the impact of the earth’s rotation on wind and water.

There are 5 major gyres in the north and south Atlantic and Pacific, and in the Indian Ocean. Like an eddy on a river, stuff accumulates in these gyres and gets “stuck“in the currents there. If it’s durable material, like plastics, it can stay in the gyre indefinitely, and that’s a problem.

Plastic is great stuff, but if we use this durable material for temporary purposes- it's a little nuts, right? Much of what we eat, drink, or use comes packaged in plastic- designed to last forever, but used for products that we “throw away”. Failure to recapture this plastic – and we currently recapture only a fraction of what we make- allows plastic to “escape” into nature-where it takes a very long time to break down- and a lot of that plastic ends up in the ocean gyres.

Scientists are finding that plastic debris is accumulating in the each of the 5 oceanic gyres. Plastic won’t biodegrade easily, but it does photo degrade- light breaks it into tiny particles. As plastic breaks down into particles and circulates through oceans, it picks up and concentrates waterborne contaminants like PCBs, DDT, other pesticides, and hydrocarbons washed into the oceans. And then sea creatures eat it.

Seabirds, whales and dolphins, sea turtle species, and fish species have been found with plastic in their bodies. These critters eat the plastic, mistaking it for food, leading to internal blockages, dehydration, starvation, and sometimes death. And then we have to ask- if these plastics absorb chemicals, and they enter the food chain, will our wastes find their way back to us?

Two gyres in particular - the Northern Pacific Gyre between Asian and North America and the North Atlantic Gyre between Europe and North America- have come under particular scrutiny- This is the “Northern” world, where most plastics are “consumed” (not really) and discarded. The Northern Pacific Gyre is the site of an unusually intense collection of man-made debris, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s full of plastics, chemical sludge and other debris- much of it tiny particles suspended in the water column. It’s not visible on Google earth, but it can be seen in water samples. This patch is estimated to be the size of Texas.

The North Atlantic Garbage Patch human made debris floating within the North Atlantic Gyre is estimated to be hundreds of kilometers across in size with a density of over 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometer. Ship-based pollution is a source of concern; a typical 3,000 passenger cruise ship produces over eight tons of solid waste weekly, a major amount of which ends up in the patch. Pollutants range in size from abandoned fishing nets to micro-pellets used in abrasive cleaners. Currents carry debris from the west coast of North America to the gyre in about six years, and debris from the east coast of Asia in a year or less. The mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been estimated at around 100 million tons. photo © 2007 defendersenews | more info (via: Wylio)

What can you do? 3 things. Respect, Protect, Collect. Make yourself aware of the problem, and how to prevent it- Respect your Mother. Then Protect. The best course is to make sure plastics don’t wind up in the ocean in the first place. Every scrap of plastic you purchase should be recycled. Use Greenopolis Kiosks and PepsiCo Dream Machines. If you can’t recycle it, don’t buy it. Lobby your stores and community to recycle more and ban non recyclable packaging. Use reusable water bottles and shopping bags. Then, Collect. Help with cleanup efforts wherever you find them. Get the Ocean Aid Pocket guide and support the 5 Gyres organization (http://5gyres.org/) to draw attention to the issue and stop the widening gyres of plastic in our seas. You can do it.