Encyclopedia of Science

[SphinxsGuardian]

I'm writing a paper on the floating 'Trash Island' in the North Pacific Gyre and would like to include some opinions from people. The 'Island' is 500 miles off the coast of California and is estimated to have exceeded the size of the United States. It's primarily made up of plastic. How does knowing about this make you feel? Do you want to do anything about it?

[InfoJunkies]

It makes me almost physically sick, and it makes me want to find a recycling center in my town for ALL plastics.

[dbsf]

Is to consider what constructive ways are available to address this issue.
It's a curious scale problem that's really at issue here. The plastic 'gyre' is not just visible floating trash but, more importantly, is plastic hydrocarbons that have decomposed to a molecular, long chain level. These are ingested at the plankton level which means they're re-entering the food chain at a critical point that affects most marine species.

So what's a planet to do? Already the idea of large floating bio-engineered plankton 'corrals' is being discussed at the academic level, as are solar powered aggregating collection systems that would drift passively in these zones, selectively removing molecules via a yet to be designed catalyst.

Oddly enough, it's one issue that I think can be resolved once the data collected is confirmed and once there's a will, at the international level, to do something about it. We should encourage data collection to establish a reasonable argument for action, anything less will be allowing the problem to be swept under the table by commercial, short term interests.