Latest Great Pacific Garbage Patch Stories

Floating plastic debris — which helps populate the infamous "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" in the Pacific Ocean — has become a problem in the Great Lakes, the largest body of fresh water in the world. Scientists reported on the latest findings from the Great Lakes here today at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. "The massive production of plastic and inadequate disposal has made plastic debris an...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The Robert C. Seamans, a tall ship owned and operated by Sea Education Association (SEA) will leave port October 3, 2012, on a research expedition. The journey is dedicated to examining the effects of plastic marine debris in the ocean ecosystem, including debris generated by the 2011 Japanese tsunami. The ship will be out for a 37-day cruise, during which members aboard the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based research vessel will...

"Plastic Ocean" author launches Pacific Rim tour to discuss latest science about plastic pollution in the ocean, including recent research on tsunami debris Long Beach, CA (PRWEB) September 02, 2012 In association with Algalita Marine Research Institute, Captain Charles Moore prepares for the first in a series of presentations and dialogue meetings titled The Plastic Pollution Conversation, to be held at locations across the Pacific Rim, beginning September 8 in Tokyo. The Tour...

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com Perhaps because of their proximity to what has been dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Hawaiians have voted to ban the use of plastic shopping bags throughout the state by 2015. This month, Honolulu County became the final county in the island state to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags at shopping centers. Voters also approved the ban of paper bags that did not contain at least 40 percent recycled material. Officials said the 2015...

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com Plastic trash has been accumulating in the Pacific Ocean at an alarming rate and its effects are reverberating throughout the ecosystem, according to a new study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. The  study, published in the May 9 online issue of the journal Biology Letters, found that plastic trash in the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has increased by 100 times over in the past 40 years.  Experts disagree over the...

[ Watch the Video ] Oceanographers may be severely undercounting the true amount of plastic waste that finds its way into the oceans after a happenstance discovery of how the plastic is actually distributed. On a research cruise, University of Washington oceanographer Giora Proskurowski noticed the water surface was littered with tiny bits of plastic, until noticing the that as the wind picked up the plastic “disappeared.” Water samples taken from 16 feet below the surface found the...

The tsunami that followed on the heels of the March 11, 2011, earthquake in Japan produced as much as 25 million tons of debris. Much of this debris was swept into the ocean. What stayed afloat drifted apart under the influence of winds and currents, most of it eastward. Predicted to reach the West Coast of the United States and Hawaii within the coming years, the debris' composition and how much is still floating on the surface are largely unknown. One thing is certain: the debris is...

SEAPLEX researchers estimate tens of thousands of tons of debris annually ingested by fish in middle ocean depths of North Pacific Ocean The first scientific results from an ambitious voyage led by a group of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration of an area of the ocean that has been labeled as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."Two graduate students with the Scripps Environmental...

The huge tsunami triggered by the 9.0 Tohoku Earthquake destroyed coastal towns near Sendai in Japan, washing such things as houses and cars into the ocean. Projections of where this debris might head have been made by Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maximenko has developed a model based on the behavior of drifting buoys deployed over years in the ocean for scientific purposes.The debris first spreads out eastward...

There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the "Great Garbage Patch" between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.Further claims that the oceans are filled with more plastic than plankton, and that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s are equally misleading, pointed out Angelicque "Angel" White, an assistant professor of...