Eastern Garbage Patch
Photo courtesy of cesarharada.com on Flickr.
More than a decade after Moore discovered it, this vortex of synthetic waste swirls tirelessly, but now has an official name: the Eastern Garbage Patch. Estimates of its size range between 435,000 and 932,000 square miles, but most scientists refer to it as twice the size of Texas.
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The plasticization of the world’s oceans may prove to be one of the 21st century’s most complicated environmental challenges. Oceans comprise 72 percent of the planet. The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre alone covers a swatch of about 10 million square miles. Because of the vastness of the ocean, both in area and depth, the amount of debris at sea is neither known nor removable on any measureable scale. “Imagine cleaning up all of the land on earth then digigng down and sifting through that earth to a depth of two miles,” Moore says. “Working in the ocean is a whole different ballgame than working on land.”
— Excerpts from ‘The Largest Environmental Problem You’ve Never Heard Of,’ by Hamida Kinge and appearing in the Spring 2009 issue of Next American City.
