Great Pacific Garbage Patch!
What does it look like.

 From: tony walker <[email protected]>
Subject: A Little More info on "great pacific garbage patch"
To: "tony walker" <[email protected]>
Date: Saturday, December 25, 2010, 3:02 AM

Hi again I thought I might say what caught my attention about this "great pacific garbage patch":   The web site that I was reading said that there was an island of trash twice the size of the United States floating out in the pacific ocaen. And I could not believe I had never heard of such a thing. So I started looking and I was shocked at what I found.   There is trash but it seems to me that it is a different type than I was thinking I would find. or maybe not?   Anyone out there??? what is your take on this??? I am looking for thinking people!!! So put on your thinking cap before you start.   I hope to share my findings with those who respond.
With Love your brother in Christ tony
  Dear Friends and Family I just heard about this on 12-17-2010 I did some checking into this and came to an opinion and was wanting to see what others found out.   Please let me know what you think about "great pacific garbage patch"  
                      eMail me: [email protected]


Wikipedia talks as if it is really a Visible Island
, with statements like: "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch"... "Pacific Trash Vortex"... "is a gyre of marine litter" ..." high concentrations of marine debris"... "Moore... came upon an enormous stretch of floating debris."

And they use terms like:
"pelagic debris"..."Neuston" ..."Gyre"..."marine debris"..."floating debris"..."waste material " ... "marine pollution".  Now these terms sound Dire and appalling as I believe they are intended to, But If you lookup these terms they ALL relate to natural things.
1 gyre (A circular or spiral motion, especially a circular ocean current.)
2  pelagic  (Relating to or occurring or living in or frequenting the open ocean) 
3 Zooplankton (Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. The word "zooplankton"  meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Individual zooplankton are usually too small to be seen with the naked eye.)
4  Neuston (collective term for the organisms that float on the top of water (epineuston) or live right under the surface (hyponeuston)). 
 
You will not see them in RED, BUT they also say these things : 
"the patch is not visible from satellite ..."
"...impossible to detect by aircraft or satellite."
"...nor do they appear as a continuous debris field" 
"...large items readily visible from a boat deck are uncommon"   
  "Moore's claim of having discovered a large, visible debris field is, however, a mischaracterization ..."
"Most debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the surface..."
"...it primarily consists of particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye"
the plastic "...is too small to be seen"  
Read it for yourself at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
You will see these very same words, BUT you will NOT see them in  RED.

 Thanks again for looking. It's good to know not everyone just accepts everything said. your best uncle named tony walker. God bless you.

Read here: Wikipedia's content and you decide if they are trying to slant the picture of what is actually there. (here I hi-light their comments in RED and put my comments in Green). 



My Comments about Wikipedia page.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch Wikipedia page was last modified on 16 December 2010 at 14:34. 
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Garbage Patch is located within the North Pacific Gyre1 , one of the five major oceanic gyres . (If you do not know what a gyer is, it sounds dire or bad. Check My WORD LIST at the end of this section)

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N.[1] The patch extends over a very wide area, with estimates (Guesses) ranging from an area the size of the state of Texas  to one larger than the continental United States; however, the exact size is unknown.[2] This can be attributed to the fact that there is no specific standard for determining the boundary between the "normal" and "elevated" levels of pollutants and what constitutes being part of the patch. The size is determined by a higher-than normal degree of  concentration of pelagic2  debris in the water. Recent data collected from Pacific albatross populations suggest there may be two distinct zones of concentrated debris in the Pacific.[3] (Another word most people do not know. My first guess would be a concentration of trash. How about you? Anyway it sounds bad. Look at My WORD LIST below to find out )  


The Patch is characterized by exceptionally high (higher-than normal as just said above only NOW it is exceptionally high ) concentrations of pelagic2 plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.[4] Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography since it primarily consists of suspended particulates in the upper water column. Since plastics break down to ever smaller polymers, concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper water column is significantly higher than average.

Discovery The Patch is created in the gyre (a round shape) of the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone

The existence of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was predicted in a 1988 paper published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States. The prediction was based on results obtained by several Alaska-based researchers between 1985 and 1988 that measured neustonic plastic in the North Pacific Ocean.[5] This research found high concentrations of marine debris accumulating in regions governed by ocean currents. Extrapolating from findings in the Sea of Japan, the researchers hypothesized that similar conditions would occur in other parts of the Pacific where prevailing currents were favorable to the creation of relatively stable waters. They specifically indicated the North Pacific Gyre.[6]

Charles J. Moore, returning home through the North Pacific Gyre after competing in the Transpac sailing race in 1997, came upon an enormous stretch of floating debris. Moore alerted the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who subsequently dubbed the region the "Eastern Garbage Patch" (EGP).[7] The area is frequently featured in media reports as an exceptional example of marine pollution.[8] Moore's claim of having discovered a large, visible debris field is, however, a mischaracterization (A polite way of saying an exaggeration or a lie) of the polluted region overall, since it primarily consists of particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye.[9]

A similar patch of floating plastic debris is found in the Atlantic Ocean.[10]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-10"[11]

Formation Like other areas of concentrated marine debris in the world's oceans, it is thought, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch formed gradually as a result of marine pollution gathered by oceanic currents.[12] The garbage patch occupies a large and relatively stationary region of the North Pacific Ocean bound by the North Pacific Gyre (a remote area commonly referred to as the horse latitudes). The gyre's rotational pattern draws in waste material from across the North Pacific Ocean, including coastal waters off North America and Japan. As material is captured in the currents, wind-driven surface currents gradually move floating debris toward the center, trapping it in the region.

The size of the patch is unknown, as large items readily visible from a boat deck are uncommon. Most debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the surface, making it impossible to detect by aircraft or satellite. Instead, the size of the patch is determined by sampling. Estimates (Guesses) on size range from 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres (5,800,000 sq mi) (0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean), or, in some media reports, up to "twice the size of the continental United States".[13] Such estimates, however, are conjectural based on the complexities of sampling and the need to assess findings against other areas.

Net-based surveys are less subjective than direct observations but are limited regarding the area that can be sampled (net apertures 1–2 m and ships typically have to slow down to deploy nets, requiring dedicated ship’s time). The plastic debris sampled is determined by net mesh size, with similar mesh sizes required to make meaningful comparisons among studies. Floating debris typically is sampled with a neuston or manta trawl net lined with 0.33 mm mesh. Given the very high level of spatial clumping in marine litter, large numbers of net tows are required to adequately characterize the average abundance of litter at sea. Long-term changes in plastic meso-litter have been reported using surface net tows: in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre in 1999, plastic abundance was 335 000 items km2 and 5.1 kg km2, roughly an order of magnitude greater than samples collected in the 1980s. Similar dramatic increases in plastic debris have been reported off Japan. However, caution is needed in interpreting such findings, because of the problems of extreme spatial heterogeneity, and the need to compare samples from equivalent water masses, which is to say if you sample the same parcel of water a week apart an order of magnitude change in plastic concentration could be observed.[14] Further, although the size of the patch is determined by a higher-than-normal degree of concentration of pelagic debris, there is no specific standard for determining the boundary between the "normal" and "elevated" levels of pollutants to provide a firm estimate of the affected area.

In August 2009, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography / Project Kaisei SEAPLEX survey mission of the Gyre, found that plastic debris was present in 100 consecutive samples taken at varying depths and net sizes along a 1,700 miles (2,700 km) path through the patch. The survey also confirmed that while the debris field does contain large pieces, it is on the whole made up of smaller items which increase in concentration towards the Gyre's centre, and these 'confetti-like' pieces are clearly visible just beneath the surface. (This statement conflicts with two statements made earlier on this page. Such as ... large items readily visible from a boat deck are uncommon, and it primarily consists of particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye.)

Sources of pollutants There is no strong scientific data concerning the origins of pelagic plastics. The figure that an estimated 80% of the garbage comes from land-based sources and 20% from ships, is derived from an unsubstantiated estimate. (Guesses) [15] However, ship-generated pollution is a source of concern since a typical 3,000 passenger cruise ship produces over eight tons of solid waste weekly, a minor amount of which ends up in the patch, as most of the waste is organic.[16] Pollutants range in size from abandoned fishing nets to micro-pellets used in abrasive cleaners.[17] Currents carry debris from the west coast of North America to the gyre in about six years,[18] and debris from the east coast of Asia in a year or less.[19]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-npr-moore-19"[20] An international research project led by Dr. Hideshige Takada of Tokyo University studying plastic pellets, or , from beaches around the world may provide further clues about the origins of pelagic (Relating to the open ocean) plastic.[21]

Plastic photodegradation in the ocean Main article: Photodegradation

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has one of the highest levels known of plastic particulate suspended in the upper water column. As a result, it is one of several oceanic regions where researchers have studied the effects and impact of plastic photodegradation in the neustonic layer of water.[22] Unlike debris, which biodegrades, the photodegraded plastic disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. This process continues down to the molecular level.[23]

As the plastic flotsam photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper water column. As it disintegrates, the plastic ultimately becomes small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms which reside near the ocean's surface. Plastic waste thus enters the food chain through its concentration in the neuston.

Some plastics decompose within a year of entering the water, leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A, PCBs and derivatives of polystyrene.[24]

Density of neustonic plastics The patch is not a visibly dense field of floating debris. The process of disintegration means that the plastic particulate in much of the affected region is too small to be seen. Researchers must estimate the patch's overall extent and debris density from samples. In a 2001 study, researchers (including Moore) found concentrations of plastics at 334,721 pieces per km2 with a mean mass of 5,114 grams (11.27 lbs) per km2. Assuming each particle of plastic averaged 5 mm x 5 mm, this would amount to only 8m2 per km2. (But with a net mesh of 0.33 mm as mentioned above the size of the particles counted is likely to be as small as 0.35 mm with an average size of maybe as large as 0.5mm x 0.5mm which is 1/100th the bad assumed size given above. And even this smaller size does not agree with the statement said earlier "it primarily consists of particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye") Nonetheless, this represents a very high amount with respect to the overall ecology of the neuston. In many of the sampled areas, the overall concentration of plastics was seven times greater than the concentration of Zooplankton3 ( Individual zooplankton are usually too small to be seen with the naked eye. This is the reason that they collected more plastic than Zooplankton3. The Zooplankton slipped through the 0.33 mm net.). Samples collected at deeper points in the water column found much lower levels of debris (primarily monofilament fishing line), confirming earlier observations that most plastic waste concentrates in the upper water column.[25]

While there are certain species of algae, crustaceans, and fish that thrive on microhabitats similar to that of floating trash, no information has been obtained about any of these species that might live in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In addition, the trash that makes up the Patch may be substantially different than the flotsam where the species listed below thrive.[citation needed]

Certain flotsam fishes, like the ocean triggerfish (Canthidermis), spend their larval or juvenile stage in the ocean and seek for flotsam thereafter.[31] Before the abundance of present-day plastic-based debris many of these organisms were associated with natural flotsam items, like floating dead trees or sargassum.[32]

In April 2008, Richard Sundance Owen, a building contractor and scuba dive instructor, formed the Environmental Cleanup Coalition to address the issue of North Pacific pollution. ECC collaborates with other groups to identify methods to safely remove plastic and persistent organic pollutants from the oceans.[33]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-33"[34] The JUNK raft project was a trans-Pacific sailing voyage from June to August 2008 made to highlight the plastic in the patch, organized by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.[35]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-MSNBC28Aug08-35"[36]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-BBC28Aug08-36"[37]

Project Kaisei is a project to study and clean up the garbage patch launched in March 2009. In August 2009 two project vessels, the New Horizon and the Kaisei, embarked on a voyage to research the patch and determine the feasibility of commercial scale collection and recycling.[38]

The SEAPLEX expedition, a group of researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, spent 19 days on the ocean in August, 2009 researching the patch. Their primary goal was to describe the abundance and distribution of plastic in the gyre in the most rigorous study to date. Researchers were also looking at the impact of plastic on mesoplegaic fish, such as lanternfish.[39]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-39"[40]HYPERLINK "http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php" \l "cite_note-40"[41] This group utilized a fully capable dedicated oceanographic research vessel, the 170 ft (52 m) long New Horizon .[42]

My WORD LIST: 
1 gyre (a round shape) 
2  pelagic  (Relating to or occurring or living in or frequenting the open ocean) 
3 Zooplankton (Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. The word "zooplankton"  meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Individual zooplankton are usually too small to be seen with the naked eye.)
4  Neuston (collective term for the organisms that float on the top of water (epineuston) or live right under the surface (hyponeuston)). 

contact-tonywpiano
  http://whatismarriagetonywpiano.weebly.com/contact-tonywpiano.html

Other websites:


What Other People are saying
Is this based on fact or fiction?



http://yearinreview.yahoo.com/2010/us_inspiring_acts#2daily-ocean


The catalyst: For as long as Sara Bayles could remember, she's loved the ocean. She saw it as a magical place that holds endless hours of exploration and wonderment. Bayles has always felt a natural inclination to protect the environment and look after wild animals, but she didn't know how she could make a difference -- until she started her Daily Ocean project and blog .http://www.thedailyocean.blogspot.com/

The aspiring writer and art instructor lives in Santa Monica, California. When she took a trip to the big island of Hawaii, Bayles leapt at the chance to swim with the sea turtles and spinner dolphins in the warm Pacific waters. After her trip, though, she was taken aback at the contrast between the stunning Hawaiian sunsets and the Santa Monica beach, where birds pecked at plastic bags and rubbish was strewn along the sand.

After doing more research, she was shocked to discover the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area in the Pacific Ocean where the currents swirl together, collecting about 10 million tons of trash. "It is estimated to be the size of twice the continental United States. But there is more than one of these oceanic gyres; there are five," Bayles explains in awe.

Of her home beaches, she says, "I saw so much trash on the beach and thought, What could I do?"

The act: In between book writing and teaching art for a local nonprofit, 34-year-old Bayles couldn't make it to organized beach cleanups. Then she realized she didn't have to wait for an organization to set up a beach cleanup day. She set a goal: pick up trash for 20 minutes a day for 365 (nonconsecutive) days.

Four days a week, Bayles scours the stretch of sand half a mile south of the Santa Monica Pier -- collecting, weighing, and blogging findings on her website, the Daily Ocean. Every blog includes a tally: garbage weight and a countdown to day 365. On top of the "OMG, no they didn't list": syringes, condoms, baby doll heads, voodoo dolls, and soiled diapers.

What upsets her most are the convenience-store items: Cigarette butts, plastic bags, candy wrappers, and fast-food packaging make up 90% of her collection. "That's disturbing," says Bayles. On average, she picks up four pounds of trash per trek, or enough rubbish to fill a reusable grocery bag. The heaviest on a single run: 14 pounds.

The ripple: More than 165 days along, Bayles has collected more than 665 pounds of junk. That's heftier "than the world's heaviest sumo wrestler," she writes. She has been educating, empowering, and inspiring the global community to pick up more than half a ton of trash so far -- motivating hundreds of beach-goers to become beach-doers.

Across the country, Danielle Richardet started collecting cigarette butts in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, for 20 minutes at a time and posting the results on her own blog. She writes: "We all impact each other. Sometimes we don't even know we've made a difference in someone's life. The ripple effects that we help create can be so powerful."

The farthest and most dramatic ripple, Anke from Germany, retrieves rubbish from the Baltic Sea and creates beautiful artwork with it.

Bayles's determination has led her to become an environmental activist and mentor. "I didn't expect to learn so much about plastic bag bans and water bottles," Bayles says. On the not-so-sandy front steps of the state capitol last summer, she lobbied for AB1998, the plastic bag ban.

What's next? Bayles is shopping for a literary agent for her fantasy novel, "Calliope and the Heart of the Sea," about a girl's crusade to save the ocean. She hopes her Santa Monica cleanup crusade will lead her to an environmental research expedition, just south of the Pacific Ocean. She's fundraising (with a goal of $25,000) for a trip with her husband, a marine biologist, to the open waters to collect water samples, to study plankton and the effects of micro-pollutants in the ocean, and of course to blog about her findings


http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/

"In the ocean, plastic waste accumulates in swirling seas of debris, where plastic to sea life ratios are 6:1; where birds and mammals are dying of starvation and dehydration with bellies full of plastics; where fish are ingesting toxins at such a rate that soon they will no longer be safe to eat.

The largest of these garbage swills is known as the Pacific Gyre, or The Great Garbage Patch. It is roughly the size of Texas, containing approximately 3.5 million tons of trash. Shoes, toys, bags, pacifiers, wrappers, toothbrushes, and bottles too numerous to count are only part of what can be found in this accidental dump floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco.

What can we do about it? First, we need to understand the size of the problem. Then, together, we need to find the solutions.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLrVCI4N67M

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Good Morning America 

rexsherman 

Comments: 

the governments need to kill off the citizens, reduce the population, that way will reduce the carbon footprint of the evil human beings. we must save gaia mother earth at the cost of human population. 

mrzack888 


listen we need to basically fabricate giant shrimp boat like ships, 150 ft long with booms 80 ft wide on both sides of the ship, catch the trash and see if the government will pay us for each ton of trash hauled in.

brilliant, I will also need tugs and barges to carry the trash to some third world country for proper disposal so if you interested thumbs up this thing 

squintringo8 


http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/great_pacific_garbage_patch.php

http://surftherenow.com/2009/05/02/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12985637

http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/great-pacific-garbage-patch?2007

http://lovetomorrowtoday.com/2009/05/18/update-on-great-pacific-garbage-patch/

05.18.09 by Rich

Update on Great Pacific Garbage Patch Last year, we ran a piece on the swirling mass of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean, often called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In his recent story for the Telegraph, Richard Grant provides a more in depth look at this "accidental monument to modern society." As he explains, the mass of debris was first discovered in 1997 "by a Californian sailor, surfer, volunteer environmentalist and early-retired furniture restorer named Charles Moore, who was heading home with his crew from a sailing race in Hawaii." Moore was taking a shortcut across the edge of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, "an immense slowly spiralling vortex of warm equatorial air that pulls in winds and turns them gently until they expire." Sea currents converge in the gyre, collecting much of the flotsam from the Pacific Rim. Though, as Grant writes, "fifty years ago nearly all that flotsam was biodegradable. These days it is 90 per cent plastic."

"It took us a week to get across and there was always some plastic thing bobbing by," Moore tells Grant. "It wasn’t a revelation so much as a gradual sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong here. Two years later I went back with a fine-mesh net, and that was the real mind-boggling discovery." Moore continues, "we found six times more plastic than plankton, and this was just colossal. No one had any idea this was happening, or what it might mean for marine ecosystems, or even where all this stuff was coming from."

There is an estimated three million tons and growing. As Grant suggests poignantly, "when Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist, started tinkering around in his garage in Yonkers, New York, working on the first synthetic polymer, who could have foreseen that a hundred years later plastic would outweigh plankton six-to-one in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?"

My Comments: Moore was using a Net Mesh .033mm. (As noted in Wikipedia,/Great Pacific Garbage Patch/ Formation). With that mesh size how much plankton would stay in the net??? Is it any wonder that Moore got a lot more plastic than plankton?