An Ocean Full Of Plastic

By Conor | October 1, 2008

You think the economy is in trouble? Have a look at our oceans.

I would like to touch on a subject I highlighted previously, more specifically the giant garbage dump of plastic products that is floating around the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just out of everyone’s view.

This garbage dump of “plastic soup“, is 10 meters thick (depth from the surface), and roughly the size of the continental United States. It has only been really discovered in the last ten years and is growing massively. The currents move in such a way that all of the garbage circles into these areas and fests. An area where nobody sails, no islands exist, and nobody knows about. One-fifth of the plastic comes from falling off of boats and oil rigs, but the rest comes from dumping into the ocean.

While it all sounds horrible for the ocean and environment, what is more scary, and hopefully will be the factor that gets peoples attention, is the impact that this plastic is having on humans health. These toxins (and plastic toxins on land) are entering our water and food system and poisoning all of us.

“Every one of us has this huge body burden,” Moore says. “You could take your serum to a lab now, and they’d find at least 100 industrial chemicals that weren’t around in 1950.”

The plastic toxins are believed to be somewhat responsible for the obesity epidemic and probably forms of cancer. And whats worse is that it is not going away.

“Except for the small amount that’s been incinerated-and it’s a very small amount-every bit of plastic ever made still exists,” Moore says, describing how the material’s molecular structure resists biodegradation. Instead, plastic crumbles into ever-tinier fragments as it’s exposed to sunlight and the elements. And none of these untold gazillions of fragments is disappearing anytime soon: Even when plastic is broken down to a single molecule, it remains too tough for biodegradation.

Much of those tiny fragments are now circling in a current in the north Pacific that stretches almost the width of the ocean and is up to 30 feet deep. And it is thick too. Not thick enough to walk on, but thick enough to be referred to as “soup”. Not too tasty I imagine, either.

*image source: bestlifeonline.com