Maya Ellison
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Plastic Island, is a massive collection of floating trash in the North Pacific Ocean. It is one of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world's oceans, located halfway between Hawaii and California. The patch covers an approximate surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, which is about twice the size of Texas, United States, and three times the size of France. The weight of the garbage patch is estimated to be around 87,000 tons, which is 16 times more than previous estimates.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Name | Great Pacific Garbage Patch |
| Discovery | 1997 by adventurer Charles Moore |
| Location | North Pacific Ocean |
| Size | 617,000 square miles (1.6 million square kilometres) |
| Weight | 87,000 tons |
| Number of Plastic Pieces | 1.8 trillion |
| Percentage of Microplastics | 94% |
| Percentage of Mass of Microplastics | 8% |
| Comparison | Twice the size of Texas, three times the size of France, 16 times larger than the area of South Korea |
| Major Contributors | Japan, China, Korea, the US, Taiwan, Canada |
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What You'll Learn
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 16 times larger than South Korea
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a collection of floating trash in the North Pacific Ocean. It is one of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world's oceans, located halfway between Hawaii and California. The GPGP is a significant environmental concern, and its size has been a subject of interest and debate.
Estimating the size of the GPGP is challenging due to the nature of the debris it contains. The patch consists primarily of small plastic particles, known as microplastics, which are smaller than 5mm in size and are suspended throughout the water column. These microplastics are nearly invisible to the naked eye, making it difficult to detect the patch through aerial or satellite imagery. Instead, its size is determined through sampling, computer modelling, and beach surveys.
In 2018, a report by The Ocean Cleanup foundation provided a comprehensive assessment of the GPGP's size. The report estimated that the patch covers approximately 1.6 million square kilometres or 617,000 square miles. This area is roughly twice the size of Texas, three times the size of France, and 16 times larger than South Korea. To put it into perspective, the GPGP weighs more than 43,000 cars and contains more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, with plastics making up 99.9% of the trash in the patch.
The vast size of the GPGP highlights the urgency of addressing plastic pollution in our oceans. The patch is a result of plastic debris from various sources, including rivers, oil platforms, ships, and fishing activities. The accumulation of plastic in the GPGP has significant ecological implications, and it is important to recognize that the impact of microplastics on marine life is an area of active research.
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It weighs more than 43,000 cars
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating mass of plastic located in the North Pacific Ocean. It is one of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world's oceans, and it is located halfway between Hawaii and California. The Garbage Patch is a result of ocean currents, winds, and other features that converge to accumulate marine debris, such as plastic, in certain areas.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch weighs more than 43,000 cars, or 87,000 tons, and is much larger than previously thought. It covers an area of 1.6 million square kilometers, or 617,000 square miles, which is twice the size of Texas and three times the size of France. The patch is composed of 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, with microplastics making up 94% of the total number of pieces but only 8% of the mass.
The makeup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is noteworthy, according to oceanographer Laurent Lebreton of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation. The large and medium-sized plastics bigger than 2 inches, known as megaplastics and macroplastics, comprised more than 75% of the total mass of the patch. These include items such as plastic food containers, bottles, lids, buckets, ropes, and fishing nets. In fact, fishing nets made up nearly half of the plastic discovered.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a serious environmental concern, and its impacts on marine life are an area of active research. The high concentration of plastic in this area poses a threat to marine life, as evidenced by the presence of plastic in the stomachs of dead seabirds. It is important to address this issue and find ways to reduce plastic pollution in our oceans.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the countries contributing the largest amount of garbage to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are Japan (34%) and China (32%), followed by Korea (10%), the US (7%), Taiwan (6%), and Canada (5%). These countries are primarily industrialized fishing nations, and their fishing activities have been identified as a major source of plastic waste in the ocean.
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It's one of five offshore plastic accumulation zones
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world's oceans. It is located between Hawaii and California, in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG). The GPGP is not a floating island of trash but rather a gyre within a gyre, with small plastic particles suspended throughout the water column.
The GPGP was first predicted in a 1988 paper published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and was later discovered in 1997 by adventurer Charles Moore. It is estimated to be 700,000 to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres in size, with 79,000 tons of waste. Floating at the surface of the GPGP is 180 times more plastic than marine life. This includes fishing nets, which can be extremely dangerous for marine animals.
The GPGP is a result of ocean currents and winds, which cause the horizontal transport and accumulation of buoyant plastic particles in ocean gyres. More than half of the plastic mass ever produced has a lower initial density than seawater, meaning it will float on the ocean surface until altered by weathering, fouling, or ballasting processes. The GPGP is connected to substantial ocean plastic sources in Asia through the Kuroshio Extension (KE) current system and intensified fishing activity in the Pacific Ocean.
A recent study by Ocean Cleanup revealed that the primary origins of plastic waste in the GPGP are industrialised fishing nations, including Japan, China, Korea, the US, and Taiwan. This challenges previous assumptions that developing countries were the main sources of plastic pollution in oceans. The study found that two-thirds of the waste items collected from the Pacific Ocean were objects typically used in fishing, such as floats, buoys, crates, and containers.
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It's made up of 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a massive accumulation of marine debris particles, or pieces of plastic, in the Pacific Ocean. It is located in a region between California and Hawaii and is considered the largest accumulation of plastic in the open ocean.
The patch is not a continuous island of plastic but rather a collection of small plastic particles, or microplastics, that are suspended throughout the water column. These microplastics are nearly invisible to the naked eye, making the patch impossible to detect by aircraft or satellite. However, it is estimated to cover an area of 1.6 million square kilometres, or about three times the size of France.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, according to the latest calculations. This figure is much higher than previous estimates and is equivalent to about 250 pieces of debris for every person on Earth. The mass of the plastic in the patch is estimated to be approximately 100,000 tonnes, which is four to sixteen times more than previously calculated.
The plastic in the patch comes from various sources, including land runoff, littering, improper waste disposal, construction, and fishing gear illegally dumped from boats. The breakdown of larger plastic debris into microplastics also contributes to the patch's growth. The impact of these microplastics on marine life is an area of active research, but it is known that animals migrating through or inhabiting the area are likely consuming plastic, with detrimental effects.
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It's almost entirely plastic, 99.9%
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex or the North Pacific Garbage Patch, is a gyre of marine debris particles located in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is not a solid mass or a single island, but a widely dispersed area consisting primarily of "fingernail-sized or smaller"—often microscopic—particles in the upper water column known as microplastics.
Microplastics are nearly ubiquitous in today's marine environment and may come from larger pieces of plastic that have broken down over time, from sources such as fleece jackets or plastic microbeads added to face scrubs. In the ocean, sunlight and waves cause floating plastics to break into increasingly smaller particles, but they never completely disappear or biodegrade.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of plastic in the open ocean, with an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in this region. It covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres (0.62 million square miles) with a concentration of 10-100 kilograms per square kilometre (57-571 lb/sq mi). The patch is estimated to contain 80,000 metric tons (88,000 short tons) of plastic, with 92% of the mass found in objects larger than 0.5 centimetres (3⁄16 in).
While the patch is not a single solid mass, it is still a major issue for marine life in the Pacific Ocean. It has been found to contain more than 40 animal species, with a thriving ecosystem of coastal and open-ocean species surviving and reproducing in the plastic environment. The patch contains far more plastic than marine life, with 180 times more plastic than sea life in the area. This has led to plastic ingestion by marine animals, with sea turtles and albatross chicks found to have a significant percentage of their body mass composed of ocean plastics.
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Frequently asked questions
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the North Pacific Garbage Patch, covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres, or 617,000 square miles. This is an area twice the size of Texas, three times the size of France, and 16 times larger than the area of South Korea.
The Garbage Patch is made up of 79,000-87,000 tons of waste, 99.9% of which is plastic. Of the plastic, 94% is microplastics, which make up 8% of the mass. The remaining 6% of plastic is megaplastics and macroplastics, which make up 75% of the mass.
The Garbage Patch is located in the North Pacific Ocean, halfway between Hawaii and California.
The Garbage Patch was discovered in 1997 by adventurer Charles Moore as he sailed back to California after competing in a yachting competition.
