Tons of trash is floating and expanding within a rarely seen part of the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Said to be twice the size of the State of Texas and comprised of about 3.5 million tons of plastic shopping bags and random pieces of trash, most of this lightweight and buoyant refuse is discarded onshore and carried out by wind and currents.
The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.
The report found that 80 percent of the oceans’ litter originated on land. While ships drop the occasional load of shoes or hockey gloves into the waters (sometimes on purpose and illegally), the vast majority of sea garbage begins its journey as onshore trash.
We just hope you disposed of all of those unused plastic shopping bags properly after you bought your limited-edition Anya Hindmarch, anti-plastic tote bag.
San Francisco Chronicle
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Yes – it is trash and mostly plastic – BUT NOT SHOPPING BAGS. The trash is material disposed of at see by the fishing industry and cargo ships.
Reducing use of shopping bags will do nothing to address this problem.
Gerard, Sydney, Australia.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
lets just hope people stop throwing away trash in the oceans and start recycling plastics and other items.
March 29th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Too bad this island is not even the size of LA, let alone twice the size of Texas.. try about 10miles is diameter.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=33.440609,-124.508057&spn=4.156893,6.652222&t=h&z=8
April 4th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
See video footage from this area- it’s real and whether it is from plastic bottles or bags it’s disgusting and we are responsible for it and we should make every effort to inform everyone and make changes in our daily life to use less plastic and put pressure on the corporate world to do the same. How hard is it to tax a plastic bag and offer a reusable bag for purchase
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505
also check http://www.onebagatatime.com or http://www.1greenworld.com for plastic bag statistics
We can save alot by making simple changes
April 14th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
for the real scoop, and it is real and disgusting, watch the video at
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505
for plastic bag info go to onebagatatime.com
or 1greenworld.com
April 14th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
i love to go swimming there. it has great waves. its the most fun when the plastic bags go over my head and i start to suficate. i think that we should dump more garbage into the ocean.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm