http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/where-has-all-the-plastic-gone.html?ref=hp
Hundreds of kilometers off the coast of southern California lies the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. On the other side of the country, tiny pieces of floating plastic are in the Atlantic Ocean at least two-thirds the size of the United States. Oceanographers have found a trend in these "plastic soups" and the amount of plastic has remanined steady despite the increase in industrial plastic production. This is surprising because the amount of plastic produced globally and thrown away in the United States has grown several times over the same period, and presumably some of it winds up in the ocean. For example, the plastic might disintegrate into pieces too small to be caught in a net. Or algae-coated pieces might sink to the sediments, or the plastic could be eaten by plankton or fish. That raises the concern that marine animals could be poisoned by toxic chemicals carried by the plastic.
this is really something to think about. we produce enough plastic alone, and we do nothing but pollute everything. i think we should have people go and pick up the plastic out of the ocean and recycle it. or just get some way to have americans recycle all their plastic so it doesnt go into the ocean. what if we were those marine animals? i know i wouldnt like plastic in my habitat.....
ReplyDelete"Jailbait": The article says that the plastic pieces floating around are very small. Plastic can only be recycled a few times and each time it is recycled it just breaks down into a lesser plastic. These pieces probably aren't recyclable but we could at least get them out since there are so many problems going on in the ocean because of acidification.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me wonder how big of an impact this may make on the marine life and if it is perhaps causing more problems just to the oceans balance because of the chemicals?
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. It stinks that the pieces are too small to catch in nets. I wonder what ways we could find to make sure they don't go in the ocean so the marine life can not get hurt. I also wonder what long-term affects the plastic will have on the animals. I hope we can find a way to fix this.
ReplyDeleteI think this is really sad. Do you suppose there could be something in the near future that we will be able to do to help stop these pieces of plastic from degrading until they're too small to catch with nets? I wonder how many species are being harmed from these plastics..
ReplyDeletethis is very sad news, and i think we should do everything possible to get this plastic out of the ocean. if we continue to just throw garbage into the ocean the consequences are going to catch up with us. its time we do something.
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