Who first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Charles Moore
Many expeditions have traveled through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Charles Moore, who discovered the patch in 1997, continues to raise awareness through his own environmental organization, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.
What is the most famous Garbage Patch?
the Great Pacific Garbage patch
The most famous example of a gyre’s tendency to take out our trash is the Great Pacific Garbage patch located in the North Pacific Gyre. The patch is an area of concentrated (and mostly plastic) marine debris.
Who caused the Great Garbage Patch?
The Garbage Patch is created by the North Pacific Gyre. A Gyre is a system of circulating currents in an ocean, caused by the Coriolis Effect.
How big is the Pacific Garbage Patch?
1.6 million square kilometers
The patch covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometers—roughly three times the size of France—and currently floats between Hawaiʻi and California. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly expanding as rotating currents called gyres pull more and more trash into the area.
How was the Pacific garbage patch formed?
The Great Pacific garbage patch formed gradually as a result of ocean or marine pollution gathered by ocean currents. As the material is captured in the currents, wind-driven surface currents gradually move debris toward the center, trapping it.
How are garbage patches formed?
Garbage patches are areas of increased concentration of marine debris that are formed from rotating ocean currents called gyres. The most publicized garbage patch is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre in the northern Pacific Ocean.
What human actions caused the Pacific Garbage Patch?
The simple answer: Humans + Ocean Currents = Trash Vortex. People create, consume and carelessly toss plastics, and the litter ends up in the water ways. As the plastic reaches the shoreline, currents carry it out into the ocean and a convergence of currents swirl the plastics into one general area.
How much plastic is in the Pacific Garbage Patch?
A total of 1.8 trillion plastic pieces were estimated to be floating in the patch – a plastic count that is equivalent to 250 pieces of debris for every human in the world.