Thread: Huge swirling ocean of plastic. Double the size of the continent.

Very disturbing, I am surprised we do not hear more about this.


This is just messed up:

No offense, but this looks like a load of BS to me. You think this wouldn't be on the nightly news daily if it was real? Come on... Those pinkos at CNN would devote a 1 hour segment per week to the floating garbage dump -- LOL

- Hakrjak

This is a well known fact. Known for years. Just not as important to the masses as the latest Britney pics or other such info.

GROWING DANGER OF PLASTIC POLLUTION THREATENS WORLD'S LARGEST MARINE RESERVE | Greenpeace USA

Pollution | Greenpeace USA

http://www.algalita.org/pdf/plastic-...nvironment.pdf

Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its not exactly like this blogger is making it out to be, I mean he is an evironmentalist so he will play it up a bit.

However its a pretty bad problem, this is a big topic in Cruising World and the cruising community. Lots of remote beach's are getting covered by plastic waste, and it seems to be getting worse.

The problem is partly to be blamed on large ships, but most of it is from countries that simply don't care. China for example is a big offender. They take barge's offshore and just dump garbage on a scale that a cruise ship could never hope to match. The Chiness are causing a lot of environmental damage and most people don't really seem to be talking about it. NY City also dumps a lot in the Atlantic.

The OP's post of the canoe is not from the middle of the Pacific. The "garbage patch" water actually looks like the attached image.

This is no surprise to me. Its the out of sight out of mind scenario. I work in water chemistry treating water prior to returning it to the local river. The state of Colorado's water requirements are much more stringent then Wyoming, but far less then California. Its a matter of population differences.

In the middle of the ocean, who is there to tell these large ships they can't dump? Which country regulates and polices this? How do you monitor all the ships that are out there? Cargo manifests can easily be manipulated. There is no incentive for shipping companies to change their ways, and I don't see many options to convince them unless international communities join together. I just don't see that happening. Far to much money is involved in an industry that is very difficult to regulate.

Thanks, PEERLess.

This is a serious problem. There are a number of scientists dissecting birds these days, and pulling out a substantial amount of plastic out of their guts (hard to digest food and stay alive when your insides are full of plastic).

Sad thing is, this "island of plastic" isn't very visible. It's absolutely NOT like the canoe photo (shame on the idiot who did that just to get attention-- he/she hurts their cause with misinformation like that).

But it IS like a HUGE area of "plastic soup"-- in appearance, not a whole lot different from the surrounding ocean.

But on a biological scale, VERY different.

Look at the photo of Moore from the blog-- in the background, the water looks blue (so it would NOT show up in a satellite photo). But the crud he's holding in the jar is most definitely PLASTIC SOUP.

Some folks believe that if they can't see it, it's not important, or doesn't exist (e.g., global warming).

Still others believe that things that are not visible can still affect the world in a big way (e.g., fusing some helium atoms together to produce a rather big bang, which is visible).

So to answer a few of the q's on this thread:

Is the plastic island visible? Not really.

Are the effects of this island/sea of plastic visible? Most definitely.

-Russ H.

The problem with ANY new information is CREDIBILITY.

By posting things that are just not true or that do not apply to the topic makes a case against people that want to understand and evaluate the new information.

This is not in reference to this topic in particular. It is a law of communication.

If you want people to care and do something then the first rule is DO NOT LIE to them. As Russ said, this hurts the case, instead of helping.

And yes, I think we all agree this is terrible. But misinforming people will not make it better, it will make it worse.

And no, I'm not talking about you, I am talking about the blogs and posts about this that are trying to create panic instead of helping people understand what's going on, how this affects them, and what they can do to improve it.

PS: The Credibility issue is very well explained in the book [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400064287?ie=UTF8&tag=combatblo-20"]Made to Stick[/ame]. I strongly suggest this book to anybody that wants to deliver good messages correctly.