A " Garbage Patch " at Sea !

We have long been warned that disposal of plastic in the worlds oceans is causing harm to the creatures we rely on in our food chain.  Not only do plastic bags get mistaken for edibles and eaten by fish and turtles but the sunlight causes plastic to breakdown into tiny particles that sink. to the ocean floor and become fodder for the small organisms that ingest them.  Eventually, this finds its way into humans because the products of the sea are an important part of our food chain.

Ever since oil became a valuable product early last century and began to power the internal combustion engine we have discovered ways of using it to make plastics which have changed the world.  It is now hard to imagine a world without plastic and much plastic waste washes down gutters and finds its way to the sea.

Our oceans are not static.  The great gyres and currents agitate it like a giant washing machine, moving warm water and mixing it with cold and this results in our weather patterns.  A warm part of the ocean helps storms like Cyclones form.  These currents intersect and wash the shores of all the continents.

Floating plastic has for many decades been forming a garbage patch on the ocean surface in the Pacific  at a point between California and Hawaii.   The area of contamination is now as big as the entire country of France - and it is continuing to grow.  Many of the great cities of the world are situated beside rivers and discarded plastic waste is adding steadily to this great floating garbage patch that is worrying science.

In the distant past rubbish in the seas faced this same accumulation, but the substance was wood and it rotted and dissolved.  Much of todays plastics may survive for centuries and if the bird life that crosses oceans discovers it and adopts it as a sanctuary their droppings - guamo - may cement it into permanent floating islands.

That could be fatal to seas creatures that need to breathe air to survive, including turtles and whales. This accumulation of plastic is an entirely new phenomenon and science can not accurately predict the outcome.  Some of the plastics will be degraded by ultra violet light, but others are created to achieve almost unlimited longevity.

For a very long time we have regarded the sea as a convenient place to discharge our rubbish.  In many parts of the world untreated human waste is still discharged into the sea and rain runoff goes the same way without any form of filter.  Unless the countries of the world improve their waste habits that giant garbage patch the size of France will eventually expand to the size of Europe.

If that is allowed to happen, the outcome is unknown !