Great Pacific Garbage Patch By Brooke Mackenzie and George Wingfield-Clements

How Was the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Created Initially?

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch was initially created by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. An ocean gyre is a system of circular ocean currents formed by the Earth's wind patterns and the forces created by the rotation of the planet. The center of a gyre is calm and stable, not unlike the eye of a storm. This Eye draws everything to it where it then gets stuck because the currents aren't moving it any more. Think about a plastic water bottle discarded just off the coast of California, where it could then take the California Current south toward Mexico. There, it may catch the North Equatorial Current, which crosses the vast Pacific ocean. Near the coast of Japan, the bottle may travel north on the powerful Kuroshiro Current. Finally, the bottle travels westward on the North Pacific Current. The gently rolling vortexes of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches gradually draw in the bottle where its journey will end in the Great Pacific Garbage.

North Pacific Current California Current Kuroshiro Current North Equatorial Current = Great Pacific Garbage Patch = West Pacific Garbage Patch = East Pacific Garbage Patch

How is the Patch affecting the environment

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is currently twice the size of Texas and in ten years it will double in size, meaning it will then be four times the size of Texas and 12 times the size of New Zealand UN environmental programme say the Great Pacific Garbage is growing so fast it is visible from space. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now thick enough to hold a child, in ten years could hold a human - and in fifty years will hold cars and will have consumed most of the sea killing off most fish and sea mammals. If you threw a bit of plastic into the ocean from america it would take six years to reach the Patch but from Japan it will take only a year.

Fish are eating the plastic thinking it’s little chunks of food Fish are eating the plastic thinking it’s little chunks of food. Turtles, birds and dolphins are getting stuck in plastic fishnets. Plastic is the main item in the Garbage Patch. Plastic takes a long time to degrade A plastic Bag= 20 years A plastic Bottle = 450 years A fishing net= 600 years The Great Pacific garbage Patch is partially connected to the East and West Garbage Patches and they are all feeding off each other making the problem bigger.

This Is where the gyre is located. Soon our earth will have, no plants or animals then, humans! Leaving rubbish to thrive. This is to symbolize that if we don’t do something soon the earth will become a ‘Plastic Planet’.

How can we progress to removing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

Boyan Slat is a man with a plan Boyan Slat is a man with a plan. At the age of sixteen Boyan created the idea of making a ‘V’ shaped screen to filter the rubbish from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is about five feet below the water and five feet above land. It is made as a screen so the currents and fish can flow underneath the screen and not get caught in amongst the rubbish. In ten years Boyan aims to have cleared half the garbage patch. It is placed at the edge where the rubbish slowly circulates around and is drawn into the middle of the ‘V’. The first prototype model was put into the water early last year. When the screen is full the rubbish is shipped to land. It wouldn't cost much to have going and anything it does cost will be for the greater good of the planet. It wouldn't have as much of an impact as other ways that have been thought of and then dismissed because of the impact. This method of removing the rubbish has the potential to be self-sustaining once it has been going for about a year.

This is a prototype of Boyan’s screen This is Boyan Slat (The man with a plan) This is a prototype of Boyan’s screen

A Few Extra Facts: Scientists found plastic in 9% of the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ fish population. 7 billion pounds of non-recyclable plastic is produced each year around the world. (That’s 3,175,146,590 kgs) Scientific research shows that the chemicals in plastic have been found in people in the USA, Europe and Asia. Only 7% of rubbish is recycled in the U.S. In 1997 Captain Charles Moore was the first to discover the Great Pacific Garbage Patch when competing in a transpacific yacht race.

Bibliography http://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/04/great-pacific-garbage-patch-ocean-plastic-trash http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-17/meet-22-year-old-big-idea-cleaning-great-pacific-garbage-patch http://www.theoceancleanup.com/ http://garbagepatch.net/greatpacificoceangarbagepatchfacts/

WE NEED TO MAKE A CHANGE.