Island of waste spotted

Finally it has been confirmed: at least 1,700 miles of plastic trash is floating in what is now famously known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

A vague image of the trash the team expected to find in the North Pacific Gyre, a vortex where four ocean currents meet (see pic), has been located and data collected. The team of researchers, sailors, journalists, and government officials on a nearly four-week journey through the gyre say that plastic shards and netting abound in a space bigger than the state of Texas.

Among the assortment of items retrieved were plastic bottles with a variety of biological inhabitants. On August 11th, the researchers encountered a large net entwined with plastic and various marine organisms; they also recovered several plastic bottles covered with ocean animals, including large barnacles. The team collected several species in the gyre.

Shocked at the sheer mass of floating trash, the SEAPLEX, the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition, has brought home the ultimate lesson of what happens to waste simply discarded! It resurfaces and spells trouble for someone, somewhere.