California garbage patch

There are five gyres in the ocean. Garbage patches of varying sizes are located in each gyre. Instead, the debris is spread across the surface of the water and from the surface all the way to the ocean floor. The debris ranges in size, from large abandoned fishing nets to tiny microplastics , which are plastic pieces smaller than 5mm in size. This makes it possible to sail through some areas of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and see very little to no debris.

It is the most well known patch. While some areas of the patch have more trash than others, much of the debris is made of microplastics by count. Because microplastics are smaller than a pencil eraser, they are not immediately noticeable to the naked eye. Garbage patches are huge! Garbage patches, especially the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, are far out in the middle of the ocean where people hardly ever go. Because they are so remote, it can be hard to study them. Scientists rarely get to see the impacts of garbage patches on animals first hand.

So far, we know that marine debris found in garbage patches can impact wildlife in a number of ways:. Entanglement and ghost fishing : Marine life can be caught and injured, or potentially killed in certain types of debris. Lost fishing nets are especially dangerous. Ghost nets can trap or wrap around animals, entangling them. Plastic debris with loops can also get hooked on wildlife - think packing straps, six-pack rings, handles of plastic bags, etc.

Ingestion : Animals may mistakenly eat plastic and other debris. We know that this can be harmful to the health of fish, seabirds, and other marine animals. These items can take up room in their stomachs, making the animals feel full and stopping them from eating real food.

Non-native species : Marine debris can transport species from one place to another. Algae, barnacles, crabs, or other species can attach themselves to debris and be transported across the ocean. If the species is invasive, and can settle and establish in a new environment, it can outcompete or overcrowd native species, disrupting the ecosystem.

Results from these expeditions proved that the buoyant plastic mass is distributed within the top few meters of the ocean. Factors such as wind speed, sea state, and plastic buoyancy will influence vertical mixing.

However, buoyant plastic will eventually float back to the surface in calmer seas. Larger pieces were observed to resurface much more rapidly than smaller pieces. Characteristics of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, such as plastic type and age, prove that plastic has the capacity to persist in this region.

Unless sources are mitigated, this number will continue to rise. The vast majority of plastics retrieved were made of rigid or hard polyethylene PE or polypropylene PP , or derelict fishing gear nets and ropes particularly. Ranging in size from small fragments to larger objects and meter-sized fishing nets.

Plastic within the patch was categorized into four size classes: — Microplastics 0. Once the plastics were collected, a team of volunteers classified the plastic into: — Type H: Hard plastic, plastic sheet or film; — Type N: Plastic lines, ropes, and fishing nets; — Type P: Pre-production plastics cylinders, spheres or disks ; — Type F: Fragments made of foamed materials. These plastic types were then screened for clues on age and origin.

Because the plastics have been shown to persist in this region, they will likely break down into smaller plastics while floating in the GPGP. This deterioration into microplastics is usually the result of sun exposure, waves, marine life, and temperature changes. Microplastics have been discovered floating within the water surface layers, but also in the water column or as far down as the ocean floor.

Once they become this small, microplastics are very difficult to remove and are often mistaken for food by marine animals. Not only does plastic pollution in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch pose risks for the safety and health of marine animals, but there are health and economic implications for humans as well. Plastic has increasingly become a ubiquitous substance in the ocean.

Due to its size and color, animals confuse the plastic for food, causing malnutrition; it poses entanglement risks and threatens their overall behavior, health, and existence. Animals migrating through or inhabiting this area are then likely consuming plastic in the patch.

Interaction with these discarded nets, also known as ghost nets , often results in the death of the marine life involved. Once plastic enters the marine food web, there is a possibility that it will contaminate the human food chain as well. Efforts to clean and eradicate ocean plastic have also caused significant financial burdens. Through a process called bioaccumulation, chemicals in plastics will enter the body of the animal feeding on the plastic, and as the feeder becomes prey, the chemicals will pass to the predator — making their way up the food web that includes humans.

These chemicals that affected the plastic feeders could then be present within the human as well. The costs stem from its impact on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture, and governmental cleanups. These costs do not include the impact on human health and the marine ecosystem due to insufficient research available. This means that intercepting plastic in rivers is much more cost-effective than dealing with the consequences downstream. Learn more in our interactive map. Resulting from several research missions, traveling across and above the GPGP, The Ocean Cleanup team compiled an unprecedented amount of data to better understand the plastic that persists in this region.

To watch this video, you need to accept optimal cookies. For more info, check our cookie policy. This method showed a bias towards smaller objects and did not provide much insight into the larger pieces, and, thus, the entire scope of the GPGP. Over the course of three years, researchers at The Ocean Cleanup went on several data collection missions.

This included the Multi-Level-Trawl expedition, where they analyzed the depth at which buoyant plastic debris may be vertically distributed; the Mega Expedition using vessels to cross the patch with many trawls at once; and the Aerial Expedition which involved the use of a plane flying at low altitude to observe the debris from above.

Realizing that previous methods of analyzing the plastic in the patch needed improvement, The Ocean Cleanup designed a new research tool, called the multi-level-trawl, which allowed measurements of 11 water layers simultaneously going as far down as 5 meters below surface level. This trawl was then used in the Vertical Distribution Research. The multi-level-trawl allowed the team to study further down into the water and understand to which depths buoyant plastic may be distributed.

Through these studies, it was observed that buoyant plastic floats primarily in the first few meters of the water. Numerous vessel owners offered the use of their ships for the mission.

Of those ships, many carried behind them a Manta-trawl; including one mothership, the ft long Ocean Starr, which was able to carry two 6-meter-wide trawls and a survey balloon. The fleet returned with over 1.

Scientists present on the expedition noted that there was an alarming amount of plastic floating in the patch, and their preliminary findings indicated that there were more large objects than originally expected.

Plankton are tiny critters that eat algae to survive. Plankton get eaten by other animals, like whales. But microplastics stop sunlight from reaching underwater algae. Without sunlight, the algae won't grow and spread. Without algae, plankton won't have enough food. And without plankton, whales won't have any food either. Plastics also contain harmful pollutants. These dangerous chemicals are poisoning the water. They are also making fish and marine mammals, such as whales and seals, very sick.

Cleaning up marine debris is not easy. Many microplastics are the same size as small sea animals. Nets that can scoop up garbage would catch these animals too. In any case, the ocean is just too big to clean. Scientists say it would take one year for 67 ships to clean up just a tiny part of the North Pacific Ocean.

They say the best answer is to stop throwing away so much plastic. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2. Also called an alpha predator or top predator. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

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Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Marine ecosystems contain a diverse array of living organisms and abiotic processes. From massive marine mammals like whales to the tiny krill that form the bottom of the food chain, all life in the ocean is interconnected. While the ocean seems vast and unending, it is, in fact, finite; as the climate continues to change, we are learning more about those limits.

Explore these resources to teach students about marine organisms, their relationship with one another, and with their environment.