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Picture the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" and you probably imagine a floating island of bottles and litter, big enough to photograph from a satellite. It does not exist in that form. The name, popular in the media, gives an inaccurate picture of a real problem: debris concentrated across many parts of the North Pacific, much of it too small to see easily.
Marine debris. Credit: NOAA.
Not one patch, and not an island
Marine debris gathers in various regions of the North Pacific, not in a single place. There are higher concentrations of litter in these areas, but much of the debris is small pieces of floating plastic that are not obvious to the naked eye. It is possible to sail through a "garbage patch" and see very little debris on the surface, or none at all.
Why it is hard to measure
Wind and waves keep mixing the debris and spreading it — over huge areas of the surface and through the upper part of the water column. Its borders and contents shift constantly with the currents and the wind. That makes the exact size, contents and location of the "garbage patches" hard to predict or estimate.
Why it still matters
Whatever the size or location of the patches, debris in any part of the ocean can be swallowed by marine animals, causing choking, starvation and other harm. Human-made debris does not belong in the ocean or in our waterways, and it has to be dealt with.
Sources
Based on "What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?" from NOAA's National Ocean Service, a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licenza: CC0 1.0 (pubblico dominio) · Tratto da oceanservice.noaa.gov
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