The Great Pacific Garbage Patch started around the 1930's and is actually made up of three enormous masses of trash. The main one is the gyre which has given to two other trash masses, the eastern and western garbage patches. The eastern garbage patch is between Hawaii and California and the western garbage patch is east of Japan and west of Hawaii. All three patches are connected by one thin 6000 mile long current of called the Subtropical Convergence Zone. 90% of the ocean's trash is plastic! Another  bad thing about the plastic (besides there being so much) is that it does not biodegrade. Instead it photo-degrades meaning it breaks up into smaller pieces (called mermaid tears, or nurdles) which  most of it ends up on distant  shores.

 

 

 

A 2006 Greenpeace report says 80% of all the garbage in the GPGP came from land. And 80% of it is made up of plastics. The bad thing about plastic is that it doesn’t biodegrade, it only photo-degrades. This means that plastic brakes down into smaller and smaller pieces but never fully disappears.

The GPGP is particularly dangerous for birds and marine life. Sea turtles think plastic bags are jelly fish and choke. Sharks and dolphins often get tangled and drowned. And sea birds eat the plastic and starve because they can’t digest it. The United Nations Environment Program estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean has about 46000 pieces of floating plastic!!! Plastic breaks up into smaller pieces then be sucked up by filter fish or eaten by other animals.

 

 

Here are some ways you can help the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Recycle, pick up any litter that you see even if it's not yours.

Don't be a litter bug.

Reuse

Don’t buy stuff if that has unnecessary packaging on it.

 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the biggest landfill in the world. But not only is it the biggest, it's in the ocean!!