tagged w/ Great Pacific Garbage Patch
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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretches across the Northern Pacific Ocean half way between Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay Area. Its estimated bulk ranges from the size of Texas to bigger than the continental United States, and can reach depths of 100 feet. It is home to exceptionally high concentrations of plastics, chemical sludge and other debris, the garbage patch is located within the North Pacific Gyre—an area estimated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to be between seven and nine million square miles. The gyre comprises four currents that rotate in a clockwise pattern around a central point. Like a disastrous conveyor belt, the currents sweep up and transport debris, dumping them into the center (the maritime dump in question), and trap them there.
The North Pacific Gyre is one of the world’s five major subtropical gyres, and not the only one suspected of aggregating serious amounts of junk. However, it is the most researched and understood—as well as the most publicized.
Thus far, efforts concerning the Pacific Trash Vortex, as it is also known, mostly concentrate on publicizing or documenting the problem. NOAA’s Marine Debris Program is working with a variety of partners to address the matter. Other groups, like the well-known Project Kaisei, whose tagline is “Capturing the Plastic Vortex,” have gone as far as to take elaborate expeditions to the gyre to research and record the problem.
But, despite the hype, very little energy has been spent finding a way to actually clean the trash up, which is where a new ocean-friendly Santa Cruz nonprofit comes in.
Nick Drobac co-founded The Clean Oceans Project (TCOP) with Jim “Captain Homer” Holm in 2008 when the pair realized they might have to take matters into their own hands.They networked like fiends, resulting in collaborations with leading scientists at Stanford University, the Naval Postgraduate School of Monterey, the High Seas Ghost Net Project, and more. One notable partner is leading climate change scientist Rob Dunbar, a William M. Keck professor of Earth Sciences at Stanford University and TCOP’s chief scientific advisor.Thorough” is the best way to describe TCOP’s game plan.
Phase one involves near-shore testing of remote sensing technologies to determine if it is possible to effectively locate the plastic debris. They have begun local trials on some of the equipment, such as Mountain View-based CODAR Ocean Sensors (a high frequency radar system). Depending on the technology in question, other trials may take place in Alaska and Hawaii, and will involve boats between 18 and 65 feet long.
Phase two is contingent upon the results of phase one. Hopes are that they will replicate their small-scale, near-shore experiments on-site at the North Pacific Gyre, as well as test various methods of debris collection.
Phase three is the real thing: once they’ve determined the best “package” of technologies and methods, they will commence on the North Pacific Gyre for some serious cleanup, which will be carefully monitored.
http://www.goodtimessantacruz.com/santa-cruz-news/good-times-cover-stories/1580-garbage-patch-kids.htmlThe Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretches across the Northern Pacific Ocean half way... more
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All of a sudden public water fountains have vanished and bottled water is everywhere: in every convenience store, beverage cooler, and vending machine. In student backpacks, airplane beverage carts, and all of my hotel rooms. At every conference and meeting I go to. On restaurant menus and school lunch counters. In early 2007, as I waited for a meeting in Silicon Valley, I watched a steady stream of young employees pass by on their way to or from buildings on the Google campus. Nearly all were carrying two items: a laptop and a throw-away plastic bottle of water. When I entered the lobby and checked in at reception, I was told to help myself to something to drink from an open cooler containing fruit juices and rows of commercial bottled water. As I walked to my meeting, I passed cases of bottled water being unloaded near the cafeteria.
Water fountains used to be everywhere, but they have slowly disappeared as public water is increasingly pushed out in favor of private control and profit. Water fountains have become an anachronism, or even a liability, a symbol of the days when homes didn’t have taps and bottled water wasn’t available from every convenience store and corner concession stand. In our health-conscious society, we’re afraid that public fountains, and our tap water in general, are sources of contamination and contagion. It used to be the exact opposite—in the 1800s, when our cities lacked widespread access to safe water, there were major movements to build free public water fountains throughout America and Europe.
“Water fountains used to be everywhere, but they have slowly disappeared as public water is increasingly pushed out in favor of private control and profit”In London in the mid-1800s, water was beginning to be piped directly into the homes of the city’s wealthier inhabitants. The poor, however, relied on private water vendors and neighborhood wells that were often broken or tainted by contamination and disease, like the famous Broad Street pump that spread cholera throughout its neighborhood. At the time of London’s Great Exhibition in 1851, conceived to showcase the triumphs of British technology, science, and innovation, Punch Magazine wrote: “Whoever can produce in London a glass of water fit to drink will contribute the best and most universally useful article in the whole exhibition.”4 Just three years after the Exhibition, thousands of Londoners would die in the third massive cholera outbreak to hit the city since 1800.
By the middle of the twentieth century, spectacular efforts to improve water-quality treatment and major investments in modern drinking-water systems had almost completely eliminated the risks of unsafe water. Those of us who have the good fortune to live in the industrialized world now take safe drinking water entirely for granted. We turn on a faucet and out comes safe, often free fresh water. Notwithstanding the UCF stadium fiasco, we’re rarely more than a few feet from potable water no matter where we are. But those efforts and investments are in danger of being wasted, and the public benefit of safe tap water lost, in favor of private gain in the form of little plastic water bottles.
The growth of the bottled water industry is a story about 21st century controversies and contradictions: poverty versus glitterati; perception versus reality; private gain versus public loss. Today people visit luxury water “bars” stocked with bottles of water shipped in from every corner of the world. Water “sommeliers” at fancy restaurants push premium bottled water to satisfy demand and boost profits. Airport travelers have no choice but to buy bottled water at exorbitant prices because their own personal water is considered a security risk. Celebrities tout their current favorite brands of bottled water to fans. People with too much money and too little sense pay $50 or more for plain water in a fancy glass bottle covered in fake gems, or for “premium” water supposedly bottled in some exotic place or treated with some magical process.
In its modern form, bottled water is a new phenomenon, growing from a niche mineral-water product with a few wealthy customers to a global commodity found almost everywhere. The recent expansion of bottled water sales has been extraordinary. In the late 1970s, around 350 million gallons of bottled water were sold in the United States—almost entirely sparkling mineral water and large bottles to supply office water coolers—or little more than a gallon and a half per person per year. As the figure below shows, between 1976 and 2008, sales of bottled water in the United States doubled, doubled again, doubled again, and then doubled again. In 2008, nearly 9 billion gallons (over 34 billion liters) of bottled water were packaged and sold in the United States and five times this amount was sold around the world, feeding a global business of water providers, bottlers, truckers, and retailers at a cost to consumers of over a hundred billion dollars
continued,All of a sudden public water fountains have vanished and bottled water is everywhere:... more
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I am not surprised in learning that the Atlantic Ocean’s garbage patch has now been discovered. Researchers carried out a two decade study in areas of the Caribbean and the North Atlantic off of the US coast – the longest study on record of plastic marine debris conducted in any ocean basin. The maximum finding in an area being 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometer, comparable to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
This data has just recently been released by the Sea Education Association (SEA) who report over 6,100 tows having been performed in the aformentioned areas. The majority of specimens found were plastics used to make consumer items, as well as a bevvy of plastic bag remains, all no more than 1 cm across but large in number in some areas.
Dr. Kara Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association explained, “We found a region fairly far north in the Atlantic Ocean where this debris appears to be concentrated and remains over long periods of time. More than 80% of the plastic pieces we collected in the tows were found between 22 and 38 degrees north. So we have a latitude for [where this] rubbish seems to accumulate.” (See picture above.)
(Read the rest of the article by visiting the original post.)I am not surprised in learning that the Atlantic Ocean’s garbage patch has now... more
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States in the Northeast have set aside or spent between $228,874 and $527,107 a year for bottled water, according to a new report Getting States Off the Bottle released today by Corporate Accountability International. The states surveyed include four Northeastern states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Pennsylvania – all known for their high quality tap water.
The findings come as public water systems face a $24 billion annual shortfall, and during financial times where states can ill afford to be spending public dollars on such a non-essential use of an essential public resource.
“Not only is the spending patently wasteful at a time when states can not afford unnecessary expenses, but it broadcasts the absolute wrong message about our high quality tap water,” said Connecticut State Representative Richard Roy, Chair of the House Environmental Committee.
Roy is one of hundreds of public officials nationwide that are now calling for taxpayer dollars to cease flowing to bottled water. In 2008, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, representing more than 1200 mayors, passed a resolution encouraging mayors to phase out city spending on bottled water. To date, more than 100 cities have taken action to cut spending on bottled water or support public water systems as well as three states, including Illinois, Virginia and New York.
Governors and mayors are stewards of public water systems, responsible for overseeing budgets that provide the overwhelming majority of public funding for this essential public service. But the need for greater investment in these systems is growing rapidly, while public fundings for these systems languishes.
A major cause of the gap in funding has been the marketing and promotion of bottled water. Marketing campaigns, such as Nestlé’s Born Better, have convinced one in five people to believe the only place to get clean drinking water is from a bottle. And as public confidence in tap water has waned, so too has the political will to invest in public water.
“Swift action by governors to cut bottled water spending can be a strong first step in restoring public water systems and the public’s confidence in them,” said Kelle Louaillier, executive director of Corporate Accountability International.
After all, up to forty percent of bottled water sold comes from the same source as tap water. Tap water is also more highly regulated than what comes in the bottle.
Public education campaigns like Think Outside the Bottle are, however, restoring confidence in public water systems. A recent Harris Poll found that 29 percent of people switched from bottled to tap water in the last year. An overall decline in the North American bottled water market reflects this shift in behavior and attitude toward the tap. However, state action is still lagging. While each state profiled in the report has taken some steps to allocate funding towards water infrastructure – such as dedicating funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to water systems – even these steps are a drop in the bucket compared to what will be needed to close the gap.
“During these tough economic times our states need to be thinking, ‘we should only spend scarce public dollars on projects that grow the economy at large not just the bottom line for a handful of private corporations,’” said Louaillier. “Investment in public water is, in this respect, one of the wisest investments we can make.”
According to a U.S. Conference of Mayors report, every dollar invested in public water generates more than six for the economy at large in the long term.
For the full report visit www.StopCorporateAbuse.org/GettingStatesOffTheBottleStates in the Northeast have set aside or spent between $228,874 and $527,107 a year... more
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Here's one of TreeHugger's ten most potentially depressing slides. This is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in all its glory.
The floating junk is thought to be twice the size of Texas and mostly consists of man-made items such as plastics - y'know, the stuff that doesn't like to biodegrade.Here's one of TreeHugger's ten most potentially depressing slides. This is... more
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Beyond the shock of the imagery, it seems as though the vast majority of our population can somehow empathize with sea creatures dining on oceanic pulverized plastic and feel bad about how it got there in the first place, but at the end of the day, the issue of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch drifts off into the distance.
Why is it that 3.5 million tons of plastic junk ended up floating in the middle of our ocean?
It's because of you and me and our neighbors and their family and work colleagues and casual acquaintances.
Passing the buck has never been acceptable, but now more than ever, it is inexcusable.Beyond the shock of the imagery, it seems as though the vast majority of our... more
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Studying the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"... I hope everyone knows about this... We, as a society, are turning into "Garbage Patch Kids"... So sad really...Studying the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"... I hope everyone knows about... more
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The Great Pacific Garbage Dump Stretches From California to China
By DARCY BONFILS and IMAEYEN IBANGA
Aug. 6, 2008
The world's largest trash dump doesn't sit on some barren field outside an urban center. It resides thousands of miles from any land — in the Pacific Ocean.
Known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the "dump" is composed mainly of plastic, which isn't biodegradable.
Instead, the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces in the patch that extends thousands of miles, from California's coast to China.
A series of currents in the Pacific Ocean create a circular effect that pulls debris from North America, Asia and the Hawaiian Islands into a toxic stew. Then it shoots it into a graveyard of 3.5 million tons of trash that's 80 percent plastic.
Moore said he has noticed an alarming trend. The quantities have increased dramatically — more than doubling in five years. And Moore said there is no reason to believe the trend will slow.
And the plastic isn't just floating around in the ocean; new evidence suggests it is making its way into wildlife.
"I found 26 pieces of plastic, all different colors inside one stomach," said marine researcher Christiana Boerger.
Birds also are making a meal of the plastic, and large quantities have been found in their stomachs.
But the biggest debate surrounding the patch isn't its existence or its environmental impact, but rather how to clean it up.
"The experts say there is no silver bullet. We are going to keep looking, but at the moment it is not clear what the best course of action would be to deal with the materials that are already there," said Steve Russell of the American Chemical Council.
Moore, the patch's discoverer, said it's virtually impossible to clean it up. He said that stopping it from growing may be the best approach, which also may prevent other ocean dumps from forming.
Beach cleanups and improved recycling could help.
"The planet is a closed system. So everything that happens on Earth stays on Earth," said Steve Fleischl, president of the Waterkeeper Alliance . "What we need to do is to accept responsibility at the local level and rescue the amount of plastic that comes down our waterways and into our ocean."
Check out the links below for more information on the garbage patch and ocean conservation.
http://www.algalita.org/
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=home
http://www.waterkeeper.org/The Great Pacific Garbage Dump Stretches From California to China
By DARCY BONFILS... more
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