Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is one of many areas in the ocean where marine debris naturally concentrates because of ocean currents. In this episode, Dianna Parker from the NOAA Marine Debris Program explains what a garbage patch is and isn't, what we know and don't know, and what we can do about this ocean- sized problem. These natural gathering points. What is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is actually the. ![]() Listen: Listen to our latest podcast. Download this podcast. What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? ![]() What does it look like? Why can't we just clean it up? Transcript. This is Making Waves from NOAA's National Ocean Service. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I bet you've heard of it. It's a phrase that's really caught on in the past few years. And it's easy to see why: it conjures up a powerful image .. But here's the thing: it doesn't really look like that at all. What it looks like to the human eye, from satellites, is, for the most part, well .. Learn facts about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. What Is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? The Pacific Garbage Patch is said in the book World Ocean Census to be as large as Africa. Most of it is all but invisible. Well, I recently sat down with Dianna Parker from the NOAA Marine Debris Program to find out what the garbage patch is and isn't, what we know and don't know, and what we can do about this ocean- sized problem. Dianna, welcome and thanks for joining us.
Let's start with the obvious question: what are we talking about when we say 'garbage patch?' . These are areas where debris naturally accumulates. So there are garbage patches of all different sizes and shapes and compositions. The one that we know the most about is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which lies in an area between Hawaii and California. What we know about this area is that it's made up of tiny micro plastics, almost akin to a peppery soup, with scattered larger items, fishing gear, those kind of items swirling around.? ![]() Could you explain that again? These are tiny plastics that you might not even see if you sailed through the middle of the garbage patch, they're so small and mixed throughout the water column. But you're saying that most of the plastic is so small that's it's hard or impossible to see. Can you talk a little more about the plastic debris in the ocean .. So, there are teeny, tiny micro plastics out there that were either manufactured to be small . ![]() Plastics never really go away. They just break down over and over and over again until they become smaller and smaller from sunlight and other environmental factors . Do we know if fish and birds are eating this stuff? They even eat some larger plastics. So for example, the Laysan Albatross in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, we know that just about every dead albatross found on Midway Atoll has some form of plastic in its stomach. We don't know if that's what killed it, but we know that this is becoming a big problem. So we know that there are micro plastics in the ocean. We know that birds and fish and even some larger marine mammals eat these plastics. We know there are chemicals in the plastics and we know that the chemicals can absorb other toxic chemicals that are floating around in the ocean. So now the big question is, what are those plastics doing to the animals that eat them. But they're not areas where you can easily go through and skim trash off the surface. First of all, because they are tiny micro plastics that aren't easily removable from the ocean. But also just because of the size of this area. We did some quick calculations that if you tried to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean it would take 6. And the bottom line is that until we prevent debris from entering the ocean at the source, it's just going to keep congregating in these areas. We could go out and clean it all up and then still have the same problem on our hands as long as there's debris entering the ocean. So what can you, me, or anyone do to help? It's as simple as changing your individual behavior every day, creating less waste, reusing what you can, remembering to recycle .. And then going out and joining a beach clean up. It's difficult to really understand the problem until you get out there and see it first- hand, how bad the problem is. For example, every year I go out with the International Coastal Cleanup and work to pick up trash from the Anacostia and Potomac in Washington, DC, and the amount of trash you find on the shorelines is just incredible. Bottles, bags, aerosol cans, all mixed together. In some places it's like a thick mat. And so these are really populous, urban areas. But then we also see the same kind of trash on really remote beaches. For example, I was on beach in Lanai in Hawaii and we found everything from plastic bottles to flip flops, fishing gear, we found an entire couch. And some of this debris was clearly local and some of it had clearly come from other countries around the Pacific Rim. So debris can touch even the most remote places. We can take any number of steps to keep it from entering the ocean and that can happen at the highest level with governments and it can happen at the lowest level individuals and everyday choices. That was Dianna Parker, communications specialist with NOAA's Marine Debris Program. Check our show notes for the links. Shoot us an email at nos.
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