Plastics at Sea

I’ve written about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a massive accumulation of trash (mostly plastics) floating somewhere between Hawaii and California – several times before. It is one of many such gyres of effluents and waste that, because of current movements, have each settled into one very specific area in various oceanic areas. Garbage patches have become a huge and seemingly unstoppable problem. They kill sea life and endanger shipping on a massive scale.

Dianna Parker from the NOAA Marine Debris Program tells us that if we wanted to clean up just one percent of the North Pacific Ocean, it would take 67 mega-ships working a full year to haul this debris away. But because new garbage is constantly being dumped into the sea, we would never catch up. OceanService.noaa.com (Making Waves, Episode 126).  But there is a particular fascination with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because it is so huge.

“[The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is] like a galaxy of garbage, populated by millions of smaller trash islands that may be hidden underwater or spread out over many miles… A 2018 study, using data from vessel and aircraft surveys, found that 79,000 tons of plastic are floating in an area spanning 1.6 million square kilometers (about 618,000 square miles [by comparison, California is a mere 158,706 square miles!]). Previously, researchers believed the area was four to 16 times smaller.”

“Recent ocean voyages have confirmed the garbage patch covers an enormous area, and despite a lack of cohesion, it is relatively dense in places. Researchers have collected up to 750,000 pieces of microplastic from a single square kilometer, for example, and after conducting the first extensive aerial survey — a series of low-speed, low-altitude flights using multiple imaging techniques — the Ocean Cleanup foundation reported ‘more debris was recorded than what is expected to be found in the heart of the accumulation zone.’” Mother Nature Network, April 20^th.

In short, mankind is slowly killing itself in non-biodegradable plastics as these garbage patches are popping up all over the world. And how would you load all that plastic, on the surface and deep below, onto all those ships anyway? It seems like a hopeless task. But then there was this TEDx talk:

“Six years ago, the technology was only an idea presented at a TEDx talk. Boyan Slat, the 18-year-old presenter, had learned that cleaning up the tiny particles of plastic in the ocean could take nearly 80,000 years. Because of the volume of plastic spread through the water, and because it is constantly moving with currents, trying to chase it with nets would be a losing proposition. Slat instead proposed using that movement as an advantage: With a barrier in the water, he argued, the swirling plastic could be collected much more quickly. Then it could be pulled out of the water and recycled.

“Some scientists have been skeptical that the idea is feasible. But Slat, undeterred, dropped out of his first year of university to pursue the concept, and founded a nonprofit to create the technology, The Ocean Cleanup, in 2013. The organization raised $2.2 million in a crowdfunding campaign, and other investors, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, brought in millions more to fund research and development. By the end of 2018, the nonprofit says it will bring back its first harvest of ocean plastic back from the North Pacific Gyre, along with concrete proof that the design works. The organization expects to bring 5,000 kilograms of plastic ashore per month with its first system. With a full fleet of systems deployed, it believes that it can collect half of the plastic trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch–around 40,000 metric tons–within five years.

“The system uses a giant floating tube–the first one will be 2,000 feet long–made of a durable plastic called HDPE, which can float in the water, flexible enough to bend with the waves, but rigid enough to form a U-shaped barrier to stop the plastic floating on the ocean’s surface. A strong nylon screen, attached underneath, will catch some of plastic below the surface, but because it isn’t a net, won’t catch marine life. Large anchors, floating in still water hundreds of feet below the surface, will help steady the device so it moves in the current more slowly than the plastic, making it possible to scoop up the plastic that’s collected in front of the device…

“In a few weeks, the first piece of the technology, the length of a football field, will be towed out of the San Francisco Bay, along the coast of the Farallon Islands, where the team will test how the system holds up to towing. To make it to the Pacific Garbage Patch, the equipment will need to be towed for three weeks. After the local ‘tow test,’ the engineers will bring the first section back, and connect the rest to form a total of the 2,000 feet of piping, slightly longer than the Sears Tower is tall.

“With assembly complete, they’ll take the equipment 200 miles offshore for a final test. (Because this test is not in the ‘accumulation zone’ for plastic, they don’t expect to collect much waste, but will check that the whole system operates correctly.) If all goes as planned, they’ll set sail for the gyre, arriving in August. By the late fall, they plan to come back with a shipment of plastic that can be turned into products. Manufacturers like Adidas started using ocean plastic as a material, recognizing the consumer appeal, in 2016.” Adele Peters writing for FastCompany.com, April 20^th.

Whether this technology works or not, at least someone is trying to come up with answers before we choke to death on our own waste. Add this to the life-altering ravages from man-accelerated global climate change, and we seem hell-bent in contributing to our own demise as a viable species. Bottom line, humanity needs to stop polluting, on the land, sea and air, and begin to take affirmative steps to clean up what we have so horribly damaged. But it can be done!!!

I’m Peter Dekom, and it hard to advocate environmental responsibility when Trump’s America appears driven to eliminate even the most modest steps this nation has taken to reverse our predilection to waste precious resources and pollute without any semblance of personal and national responsibility.