It lies in the stationary region of the North Pacific Ocean, where the North Pacific Gyre’s rotational pattern brings in waste material from across the North Pacific. The GPGP formed gradually over a very long period of time as a result of marine pollution gathered by naturally occurring ocean currents.
#Pacific garbage patch Patch
In 2018, it was found that at least 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is composed of discarded fishing nets and trawling gear. In 2019, it was revealed that much of this ocean plastic came from Chinese cargo ships. China alone is responsible for 30% of worldwide plastic ocean pollution. In addition to this, the Ocean Conservancy group reported that Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines dump more discarded plastic into the sea than all of the globe’s countries combined. The discarded resources and other garbage were discovered to be flowing eastward out of Asia, the six primary sources being: Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
In 2015, Science journal published a study that sought to discover where exactly all the trash from the GPGP originated. What is in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? In May of 2020, Ocean Voyages once again removed over 340,000 pounds of consumer plastics and ghostnets from the ocean. Ocean Voyages conducted a cleanup in the gyre and removed over 84,000 pounds of polymer nets and consumer plastic trash from the ocean. This expedition was intended to survey the extent of debris caused by the Japanese earthquake-tsunami.īetween 20, several cleanup attempts have been made. In 2012, the Ocean Voyages Institute conducted yet another voyage from San Francisco to the Eastern edge of the GPGP, and then a following return voyage which also passed by the gyre on the way. In 2010, Ocean Voyages conducted a 30-day expedition that tested prototype cleanup devices. These researchers were also looking at the impact of the plastic accumulation on mesopelagic fish. In 2009, two vessels from the Ocean Voyages Institute the New Horizon and the Kaisei, embarked on a voyage to research the patch and determine whether or not it would be reasonable to collect and recycle the debris on a commercial scale. In 2008, the JUNK Raft Project was organized by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in order to highlight the presence of plastic in the patch. Over the last 30 years or so, researchers have been studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch quite closely. The patch consists of items such as plastic lighters, water bottles, pens, cell phones, plastic bags, toilet paper, and toothbrushes, among other small single use plastics. Some of the plastic in the patch is over 50 years old and researchers believe that the patch covers nearly 700,000 square miles of the ocean. Most of it consists of microplastics that hover at or just below the surface of the water, and despite the common perception of the patch existing as a giant island of floating garbage, its low density makes it difficult to detect by satellite imagery and even by boaters or divers in the area. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a gyre of marine debris particles that have accumulated in one area as a result of current patterns and water movement in the ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), also known as the Pacific trash vortex, is the largest of the 5 offshore garbage accumulation zones across the world’s oceans and is located about halfway between Hawaii and California, with some of it stretching toward Japan.