"Plastic soup" of waste in Pacific Ocean grows at alarming rate

[bopes]

The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan. (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html)



By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent, and Daniel Howden
Tuesday, 5 February 2008


A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.


The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Do you think this primordial soup will spawn any new viruses?
Who is more responsible for it?Asia or North America.

[bopes]

Everyone, apparently.

About one-fifth of the junk – which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags – is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.

[suebee]

ah petro's second spawn. so how deep is it? is anyone doing anything about it? can we scoop it up? i need a job.

[bopes]

It's "a translucent soup of degrading plastic waste (http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00015/05RubbishGraphic_15022a.jpg)" just below the surface, about 10 meters thick.

Gives a whole new meaning to this famous scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk).

[fortysmthing]

birds especially mistake the small pieces of plastic for food, inturn starving themselves, lots of plastic, and dead birds wash up on the oregon coast,many plastic bottles with asian writing, mostly small broken chunks,please pick up what you can, and recycle! g.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Fish,from little ones to big ones,mistake the plastic for food also.:cry:

[willoweyes]

There's more plastic than plankton in the sea, around the gyre. Filter feeders from whales to oysters not nourished.

Plastic bad bad. An ugly Sham. Who read "Best Friends for Frances" when they had/were a kid? Frances, the charming badger child, has a beautiful china tea set, but her "NOT" best friend tricks her into trading it for a plastic set, "Which will not break like glass."

So have we all been tricked by our "best Friends."

[suebee]

ive been picking up plastic and other garbage on the beach and rivers ever since i can remember (yeah goodie goodie for me) and taught my neices and nephews same...looks like we didnt do enough. ten meters thick? trawling gigantic tiny holed fishnets between two ocean liners - oh!! - all the cruise lines can now offer green/save the ocean cruises where people scoop, sort, whatever they need to do to get the stuff up onto huge cargo ships.... what do you think? then at night famous rock stars can hold concerts on board.

remember in the graduate - "Plastics son, plastics." or whatever.

all of this in my lifetime. on my f. watch. :(

[suebee]

so do plastics made from hemp float forever in the sea? how about as a cotton substitute - does the hemp plant require the pesticides cotton does? how about as a soil builder - is hemp good for the soil? how about for paper? is hemp more ecologically sound than a paper mill? henry ford made a car from it in the 30's predicting that all cars would soon be made of hemp. and hemp oil? and fiber for ropes...and on and on....

so just what is the problem with growing hemp here?

think its a conspiracy of lizard brainers?

[Isaiah Mpski]

Do we need to go through that story about how the Dec of Independance is written in hemp and so forth.
No basically hemp was outlawed when someone built and patented a machine that would mechanically harvest the hemp fiber,thus making it comparable in cost( and it wears like silk) to cotton.
Hemp oil-made from the seed is the only source of all three of the essential fatty acids(those your body can't make).Much better than fish oil.Cereal made from hemp seed goes way way back and was considered a poor person's food.It is essential if you are to avoid mental illness over a lifetime.

[willoweyes]

Id read in Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" that the flesh of free-range grass eating cattle has more omega-three benefits than farm-raised salmon (who are packed in roundup pens, dosed with antibiotics, and fed corn-crap died pink so their flesh will look pink too, like they've been eating right).

Also, in Kay Redfield Jamison"s "Night Falls Fast" Dr. Jamison talks about experiments which indicate that the omega-three fatty acids are essential to a healthy brain and nervous system.

I always said the Nervers needed more fat--and ample people really are more jolly.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Pass the pot and cook my steak rare Willow.

[suebee]

luckily pacific salmon is readily available (because reclamation of streams etc. action was taken fifteen years ago when the population was winnowing) which you can find "wild" according to the labels but i am wondering can we trust labels anymore. oh pessimist me. you can buy it canned or frozen (at trader joes) or fresh. dont eat any salmon not marked wild or restaurant salmon.

still time to tell your esteemed rep not to sign the immunity for telecoms fisa bill.

[willoweyes]

Thanks Sue Bee. My Doublecross is up in arms about this too.

Meanwhile the Supreme Court is irredeemably compromised. Scalia speaks of "so-called torture" and says "the phrase 'cruel and unusual punishment' has nothing to do with interrogation techniques."

Poor brave Ginsberg hangs on by will alone, and Beware the Ides of Roberts!

Stay away from Plastic!

Suebee, my first horse, a palomino pony, was named Sioux Bee. Piddly synchronicity? I think not!

My pony went on to a film career, appearing in "The life and Times of Grizzly Adams." Hey, it wasn't War and Piece, so what?

[suebee]

i love pintos myself.

i wrote mike honda, barbara boxer and diane feinstein! took 5 minutes.

think a president could do away with the irs?

think she/he could legalize growing the incredible hemp plant?

think she/he could revamp the war on drugs?

my stage (barn) name is sioux sous.

[craazyman]

sioux sous sue, you are a lawyer indeed.

willow, when he spoke, did he have a voice like Mr. Ed?

Willlllburrrrrrr bowahahahaha:p :p