How Was the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Made?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in the Great Pacific Gyre. A gyre is a large system of rotating ocean currents. These currents creates a whirlpool like motion in the ocean. this whirlpool picks up pieces of rubbish that have been put into the ocean and swirls them into a big floating patch in the Pacific Gyre.
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The name “Garbage Patch” gives you the image of an island of garbage. The patch isnt just an island as there is so much rubbish there is rubbish all around. This is not visible to a satellite as there is many small pieces of debris floating around that is not visible from a boat.
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Marine debris is a big factor of rubbish in the gyre. This is nets and fishing gear that has been discarded. Microplastics are another massive factor. As plastic does not disintegrate it gets smaller and smaller and this creates microplastics. Plastics such as plastic toy figures plastic guns, plastic bags and lots of other bigger pieces of plastic are found in the gyre.It is predicted that 80% of the trash in the patch is rubbisht that has flown away from landfills or rubbish we have put in rivers. this means that 80% of the rubbish is from land. Therefor 20% is from the ocean and ocean vessels that drop plastic out of their boats. Also discarded fishing gear like nets and hooks.It is estimated that ocan vessels are dumping 8 million pounds of plastic annually.
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All these plastics sit on top of the water but some drop down under the sea surface up to a couple of meters which makes it near to impossible to measure the whole size of the garbage patch but is estimated to be the size of Texas, a state of America. |