Great Lakes Green Pages

In June I posted my article on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I used images that I found on the internet to illustrate my point. While I stand behind my use of these pictures for illustrative purposes, I was surprised to find out that most of them were not specific to the Pacific Garbage patch at all. In reality, the garbage patch is actually made up of tinier particulates. Bud Perry was researching this issue and wrote this blog post to further inform you and I alike. In all, I find it more disturbing than ever. The problem with the garbage patch is worse that I thought, because it is impossible to determine the extent of the damage. Moreover, this shows that there is plenty of garbage floating in waterways that are not even related to this patch. Just read one my new favorite blog The Daily Ocean, if you need any reassurance that we are littering our beaches and thus our oceans.

You’d have to be living under a rock if you haven’t heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s a giant mass of swirling trash floating in the Pacific Ocean in an area called the Great Pacific Gyre. Even Oprah has shown videos of dying animals and floating garbage, highlighting the desperate need to clean up this massive floating island of garbage rumored to be twice the size of Texas and over 300 feet deep! A search of the internet will continually display one or two photos of floating garbage, usually from below, or a poor dead baby bird that was fed plastic by its parents. There are hundreds of maps, diagrams and schematics showing how the ocean currents can trap floating debris. Greenpeace’s website even has an animation with arrows which depicts the ocean currents.
The one thing that’s missing, to really drive the concept home, is an aerial or satellite photograph. In fact, Wikipedia specifically states: “Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography.”
The existence of the Eastern garbage patch was predicted in a 1988 paper published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, based on Alaskan researchers who found tiny particles of plastic suspended in the water of the North Pacific Ocean. They then extrapolated that other areas of the ocean, where ever currents caused a looping pattern, would trap these plastics and eventually form a giant floating island of trash. However, this was just a hypothesis, they hadn’t actually found such an island.
Later, Charles Moore, a sea captain and ocean researcher, wrote a series of articles in which he claimed to have sailed through a massive garbage island in the Pacific Ocean during the Transpac sailing race. No one else in the race came across this island, which is odd since it is rumored to be twice the size of Texas. Moore took no photographs of this phenomenon either, perhaps because he was in a race. However, Moore’s articles received instant media attention.
Wikipedia offers up a reason why there are no corroborating photos: “The size of the affected region is unknown, as large items readily visible from the deck of a boat are few and far between. Most of the debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the water surface, making it impossible to detect by aircraft or satellite images.”
Then what are all those photographs of floating garbage on the internet actually of? Turns out these are photos of other floating plastic debris in lakes, rivers, and bays which are used to illustrate what floating garbage would look like. According to the experts, this is exactly what a large floating island of garbage would NOT look like…evidently. On the DailyKos.com website, an image showing a giant field of plastic bottles has been made up of smaller images to create a “holistic” view, with the disclaimer that the image was “not taken at sea”.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I DO believe it exists; it makes all the sense in the world. We are a filthy species, spreading our toxic waste over the entire globe without a care. Despite my belief, I really don’t like the prevalence of doctored photographs, or photos taken somewhere else with no direct link to this phenomenon. I don’t need more diagrams showing me how the Carolus effect, or Ocean Gyre, or prevailing currents work. I understand how they could generate a giant mass of plastic. But, for my sake people, stop generating fake photos as this only helps the naysayers and disbelievers (they’re out there!). I’d love to have a video taken below the surface by divers, or photos showing a huge ship’s wake filled with churned garbage.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is really a huge soup of molecule sized plastic particles suspended in the saline water. It isn’t even visible to the eye; only to microscopes and other scientific equipment. The unfortunate thing is that the people generating media attention couldn’t grab enough interest by calling the area the Great Suspended Polymer Molecule Gyre. It just wasn’t catchy enough. The plastic comes from garbage so it was just a hop and a jump to the new title. Now all the graphs, charts and molecular diagrams in the world couldn’t get Oprah’s attention. Suddenly photos surfaced of large chunks of floating debris, and of poor exploded baby birds. This got attention. The problem, of course, is that all of the photographs have been faked or “re-appropriated”. I think this does a real dilemma a great disservice. It reminds me of the Tyrannosaurus debate: we don’t have a single full skeleton of the creature, so scientists used bones from other dinosaurs to make up the missing areas. This doesn’t discount the fact there were Tyrannosaurs running around, but it sure looks mighty suspicious and gives fodder to the Creationist Museum.