Floating garbage patch the size of Texas

[DutchmanAZ]

wow - I knew people/countries who dumped garbage at sea, but this is rather disturbing...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/

 

[AsUpRoDiGy]

There's actually 5 garbage patches in the ocean...the pacific one is just the largest. All the garbage patches combined is almost as big as the US. It's a massive - massive problem. Less than 10% of plastic is actually recycled, and people are literally oblivious to what's happening to this planet. By 2040, plastic will outweigh fish in the ocean, and almost all wild fish will have consumed some form of plastic by the time they make it to your dinner plate. So much more needs to be done, but sadly, no one really cares.

 

[Dback Jon]

Yeah, it sucks.

 

[BillsCarnage]

By 2040, plastic will outweigh fish in the ocean, and almost all wild fish will have consumed some form of plastic by the time they make it to your dinner plate. So much more needs to be done, but sadly, no one really cares.

Blue Planet II has been airing on BBC and at the end they do about 5-10min of behind the scenes type stuff. One was about what humans don't realize with all the garbage in the ocean. Not only is there a poop ton of it, but as it starts breaking down and the chemicals are released into the water we'll start seeing mutations of sea life.

 

[AsUpRoDiGy]

Blue Planet II has been airing on BBC and at the end they do about 5-10min of behind the scenes type stuff. One was about what humans don't realize with all the garbage in the ocean. Not only is there a poop ton of it, but as it starts breaking down and the chemicals are released into the water we'll start seeing mutations of sea life.

Exactly. And plastics break down into micro-plastics which become impossible to collect, and then all of a sudden every aspect of sea life is absorbing this crap. Ever since the Industrial Age...humans have gone on a mission to destroy the Earth, and when 9/10 people are completely clueless about reality...it really makes it hard to make a positive difference. Amazing to me that people care more about what the Kardashian's are doing as opposed to what's happening to this planet. Just insane.

 

[Russ Smith]

There's actually 5 garbage patches in the ocean...the pacific one is just the largest. All the garbage patches combined is almost as big as the US. It's a massive - massive problem. Less than 10% of plastic is actually recycled, and people are literally oblivious to what's happening to this planet. By 2040, plastic will outweigh fish in the ocean, and almost all wild fish will have consumed some form of plastic by the time they make it to your dinner plate. So much more needs to be done, but sadly, no one really cares.

We went for a walk today at a place called Laguna Creek Wildlife Trail, something like that here in Elk Grove. It's basically a creek that is swollen right now with rain. It flows to the California Delta and it's full of plastic.

The scary thing in the ocean is that there are islands where literally nobody lives, and yet the beaches are covered with plastic from the currents and as you said it all gets broken down until it's too small to easily pick up and gets digested by fish and birds.

Bottled water is the scourge of the ocean.