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| credit: UK Independent |
Think the North Pacific Gyre trash dump is a legend akin to the Bermuda Triangle or an environmentalist plot intended to deprive you of your Humvee? The picture at left is the content of one juvenile turtle found dead off the cost of Argentina. Young sea turtles mistake plastic for food. The indigestible debris from human civilization causes blockage of the digestive tract and internal lacerations. Once the concentration of ingested plastic debris is large enough, a slow death usually follows. Humans produce about 260 million tons of plastic a year. When non-degradable plastic enters the ocean, it does not degrade but becomes brittle and breaks into smaller pieces. The Sea Turtle Foundation
estimates that 100,000 marine mammals and turtles, and 1 million sea birds die from ingesting marine debris. Even large animals can die from ingested debris. In 2009 a pygmy sperm whale washed up on the South Carolina Coast after swallowing a black plastic trash bag. Her nursing calf died from starvation.
The North Atlantic also has a gyre that collects plastic trash. It was first identified in 1971, but its existence
has yet to make a difference in the design or manufacture of plastic products. The North Pacific Gyre is larger, about the size of Texas, and contains an estimated 3.5 million items of detritus. The problem of plastic debris and their effects on ocean life are probably much worse than currently understood according to scientists from the Universities of California and British Columbia studying plastic pollution in the oceans. Think about that the next time you are sucking on a plastic water bottle, or your local fishwrap tells you the oceanic trash dumps do not exist.
