8/21/2009

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch aka the “North Pacific Gyre” gets scarier every time I read a report. I have observed for decades from ships the dead-zone growing just 20 hours off the coast of Honsho, Japan’s main island.

Plastic Breaks Down in Ocean, After All — And Fast
National Geographic News, August 20, 2009–
… new study is the first to show that degrading plastics are leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A into the seas, possibly threatening ocean animals, and us. The researchers behind a new study, however, found that plastic breaks down at cooler temperatures than expected, and within a year of the trash hitting the water.
The Japan-based team collected samples in waters from the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, and elsewhere, lead researcher Katsuhiko Saido, a chemist with the College of Pharmacy at Nihon University in Japan…
…[big snip]…
….plastic debris–most of it smaller than a fifth of an inch (five millimeters)–is “dispersed over millions of square miles of ocean and miles’ deep in the water column…more…

Here’s a short report on the Garbage Patch…

Also watch the more detailed Ted Talk of Charles Moore describing this toxic issue.