An Expedition and Exhibition with Marine Debris as Material and Message. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch" Plastic Impacts Health | Plastic Ocean | Arizona Alternative Medicine. Reprinted with permission from By Susan Casey, Photographs by Gregg Segal January 6, 2007 A vast swath of the Pacific, twice the size of Texas, is full of a plastic stew that is entering the food chain. Scientists say these toxins are causing obesity, infertility...and worse. Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life's purpose in a nightmare.
It happened on August 3, 1997, a lovely day, at least in the beginning: Sunny. Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita's course, veering slightly north. The area's reputation didn't deter Moore. It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. How did all the plastic end up here? "Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. This afternoon, Moore strides the grounds. One Plastic Beach.
One kilometer of beach. Thousands of pounds of plastic. One couple turning it all into art. posted Jan 20, 2011 For more than a decade, Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang have been collecting plastic debris from a short stretch of beach near their home in Northern California. After cleaning and sorting the pieces of washed-up plastic—everything from cereal box action figures to multicolored milk jug lids—the couple transforms them into elaborate works of art. Video courtesy of Tess Thackara on Vimeo. Interested? Visit their website and blog to learn more about the work of Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang.Midway Atoll: Message from the GyreVideo: Chris Jordan's powerful photographs show the impact of disposable plastic on the albatross of Midway Atoll.Bearing Witness: Chris Jordan on Art, Grief, and TransformationPhotographer Chris Jordan's latest project left him feeling grief and hopelessness.
Comment on this articleHow to add a comment – Commenting Policy. 5 Gyres - Understanding Plastic Pollution Through Exploration, Education, and Action. What’s the size of Texas, made of plastic, and floating in the Pacific Ocean? | HaltonRecycles. If you guessed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” you’re right. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is also known as the largest landfill in the world, and unfortunately it is not found in a thoroughly planned, designed and controlled waste management facility — it’s found in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The name itself is quite deceiving and conjures up images of a large, solid, island-like mound of garbage sitting in the ocean or something similar to the infamous garbage barges of New York City. This is not the case. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in fact more of a trash soup, found floating in both the Eastern and Western Pacific Oceans and is connected by a thin 6,000 mile long current known as the sub-tropical convergence zone.
The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California, and the Western Garbage Patch floats between Japan to the west side of Hawaii. Ocean trash is a problem for all of the marine wildlife, and ultimately becomes a concern for humans as well. Environment: Pollution in the Pacific - A watery garbage patch. Haltzoom prevnext Deadly Debris (1/9) A dead albatross chick photographed on Midway Atoll, a strip of sand and coral in the North Pacific. These are the actual stomach contents of this ... more Plague of Plastic (2/9) A sample of North Pacific Ocean water full of plastic debris held by Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and ... more World’s Biggest Garbage Dump (3/9) A map shows the North Pacific Gyre, a vast area of high pressure weather into which ocean currents deposit garbage.
The system is circulatory, so ... more Death Trap (4/9) A tangle of discarded fishing nets drifts just below the ocean’s surface. Algalita has noticed that far from land there is a higher proportion of ... more Alien Habitats (5/9) A tiny crab clings to the side of a plastic bottle top. Plastic can be a magnet for life. Can We Cleanup?