Prevention for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Megan Harkins Jessica Nelson Andrew Mirto Casey Brodmann Danielle Perez

What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Ocean currents collect floating garbage Garbage drops into the path of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre Trash is collected at the convergence zone

Background (continued) Stretches for hundreds of miles in the Pacific Ocean Consists mostly of plastic Some may describe it as "trash island", but it is not that simple

Facts/Details In the 1970s scientists started studying the area. They noticed that the garbage collected together in a cluster. Approximately 3.5 million tons of plastic waste can be found in the garbage patch. 100,000 marine mammals each year are victims of plastic trash related deaths because they consume or become entangled in the waste.

Facts/Details Cont'd Of the more than 200 billion pounds of plastic the world produces each year, about 10 percent ends up in the ocean. However, the actual discovery of the patch was made by a racing boat captain, Charles Moore.

The Harm of Our Actions Entanglement Small surface debris ex. plastic resin pellets Photodegredation -plastic's toxicity has harmful environmental/health side effects

The Patch featured in ABC News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a4S23uXIcM&feature=plcp

Major Players

Major Players Greenpeace: organization that advocates for green methods of keeping the earth healthy. Clean Ocean Action (COA): 125 groups using science, law, research, education, and citizen action to protect waterways. Captain Charles Moore: came across the Garbage Patch in 1997. Project Kaisei: non-profit organization focused on increasing awareness of marine debris

Major Players Blue Frontier Campaign: has an emphasis on bringing citizen activists into the law-making process regarding environment. Oceana: works to prevent the irreversible collapse of sea life. More than 300,000 members worldwide.

Reasons Why Our Movement Our Stance Reasons Why Our Movement

California Beaches Some California coasts do their best to clean up and prevent littering: The City of Santa Monica: $1.2 Million (3 miles of beachfront) Orange County: $350,000 (6 miles of beachfront) The City of Long Beach: $1 Million Estimated Total Annual Cost: $52.2 Million

An APEC Report A report done by Marine Resource Conservation working group of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), "The damage caused by marine rubbish and debris is costing the Asia-Pacific region more than a billion dollars each year" (Discovery News, 2009).

Marine Debris Information A study done by NOAA goes on to state that, "Washington DC spent an average of $319,000 per year to operate and maintain two skimmer boats that remove floating debris from its waterways."

Cost Hypothesis Cleaning up just 1%: 67 Ships Over 1 Year $5,000-$20,000 per Day $122 Million-$489 Million per Year (Not including labor costs)

Our Stance Not to clean up what has already been done To stop contributing to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Recycling: Reusable Water Bottles

Reusable Water Bottles Most types of plastic bottles are safe to reuse at least a few times of properly washed with hot soapy water. More than 40 billion plastic water bottles were sold this year in the US alone, about 80% will end up in a landfill Reusable bottles not only avoid waste: saving energy health saving money

Acts of Education To help educate people about what can be done first people need to know what they can recycle. There are more ways to recycle besides the standard, such as using them to create items around the house. One man even made a boat out of bottles. If you prefer your residence to feature a bit more land and a little less water, this house is made of 8,000 plastic bottles and is one of many bottle homes built by honduras-based Eco-tex. The bottles are filled with mud and bound together with a cement mixture, offering low cost, long lasting construction

Acts of Education Cont. Something a little less extravagant can be clothes for yourself, or accessories for your pets, there are all kinds of things you can do with plastics, besides turning them in for cash, which is 5 cents a bottle, and paid by the weight for glass and plastics! -Also you can do your own kinds of recyling, such as making clothes out of the plastics, or cloths even for your pets! Some people go as far as to make a house

Our Movement Facebook Website Pact Signatures Chalking

Arguments Against Recycling That the items will just be dumped anyways- Meaning that many recycling items are contaminated very easily and have to have whole batches of recycled items thrown away. Also that there is more pollution caused by shipping the contents of recycled goods to factories that can use them. Lastly the argument of costs, that the price to recycle it was more than the cost of just throwing it away

Counter-arguments While it is possible to have contamination in batches of recycled goods, the technology now has a much safer method of sifting through each piece, with machines and hand picking. Nowadays there are so many recycling places around the country the cost and pollution that used to be caused from transport has been eliminated The costs have also become negligent as there are new taxes for recycling as well as the ability to make money from it with 5 cents a bottle.

Plastic Paradise Movie (Trailer) http://vimeo.com/42143924

Work Cited -Algalita marine research foundation. In (2010). Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.algalita.o- rg/abou-us/bios/htm -Greenpeace usa. In (2010). Greenpeace.org. Retrieved from http- ://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/ -Oceana. (2012). Retrieved from http://oceana.org/en/about-us/- what-we-do -Reilly, M. (05 0). Recycling keep it out of the landfill. Retrieved from http://1800recycling.com/2010/04/case-against-recycling/ -Diane, B. (2010). Great pacific garbage patch:pacific trash vortex. National Geographic. Retrieved from http://education.nationalgeographic.com/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1 -Croarkin, T. (2012). About.com. Retrieved from http://environment.about.com/od/earthtalkcolumns/a/recycleplastics.htm California coastal commision. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.coastal.ca.gov/ Phillips, N. (2009, Oct. 21). Discovery news. Retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/earth/garbage-patch-ocean-cost.html http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/physical-geography/facts-about-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/ http://pottygirl.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/whos-to-blame-for-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-look-in-the-mirror/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/5208645/Drowning-in-plastic-The-Great-Pacific-Garbage-Patch-is-twice-the-size-of-France.html