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Mario Aguilera / Scripps Institution of Oceanography
SEAPLEX researchers encounter a large ghost net with tangled rope, net, plastic, and various biological organisms during a 2009 expedition in the Pacific gyre. Matt Durham (seen wearing a blue shirt) is pictured with Miriam Goldstein.
The amount of plastic trash in the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has increased 100-fold during the past 40 years, causing "profound" changes to the marine environment, according to a new study.
Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego found that insects called "sea skaters" or "water striders" were using the trash as a place to lay their eggs in greater numbers than before.
In a paper published by the journal Biology Letters, researchers said this would have implications for other animals, the sea skaters' predators -- which include crabs -- and their food, which is mainly plankton and fish eggs.
The scientists also pointed to a previous Scripps study that found nine percent of fish had plastic waste in their stomachs.
The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" -- which is roughly the size of Texas -- was created by plastic waste that finds its way into the sea and is then swept into one area, the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, by circulating ocean currents known as a gyre.
NOAA
This map shows the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone within the North Pacific Gyre.
The Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition, known as SEAPLEX, traveled about 1,000 miles west of California in August 2009.
A statement on Scripps' website said the scientists had "documented an alarming amount of human-generated trash, mostly broken down bits of plastic the size of a fingernail floating across thousands of miles of open ocean."
Scripps graduate student Miriam Goldstein, SEAPLEX’s chief scientist, said that plastic had arrived in the ocean in such numbers in a "relatively short" period.
Dec. 29, 2007: NBC's Kerry Sanders reports on a huge mass of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean that is killing marine life and growing larger each day.
"Plastic only became widespread in late '40s and early '50s, but now everyone uses it and over a 40-year range we've seen a dramatic increase in ocean plastic," she said. "Historically we have not been very good at stopping plastic from getting into the ocean so hopefully in the future we can do better."
Jim Leichter / Scripps Institution of Oceanogra
Researchers found fish larvae growing on pieces of plastic, such as the one above.
Sea skaters -- relatives of pond water skaters -- normally lay their eggs on flotsam such as seashells, seabird feathers, tar lumps and pumice. The sharp rise in plastic waste had led to an increase in egg densities in the gyre area, the study found.
"We're seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic," Goldstein said in a statement.
She told BBC News that the addition of "hundreds of millions of hard surfaces" to the Pacific was "quite a profound change."
Samples taken by the scientists showed how marine life, such as small velella pictured above, lives alongside pieces of plastic.
"In the North Pacific, for example, there's no floating seaweed like there is in the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic. And we know that the animals, the plants and the microbes that live on hard surfaces are different to the ones that live floating around in the water," she added.
A garbage patch has also been found in the Atlantic Ocean, lying a few hundreds miles off the North American coast from Cuba to Virginia.
Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who said he coined the phrase the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," told msnbc.com by phone that the only solution was to switch to using biodegradable plastic and let the plastic gradually disperse.
"We can't clean it up. It's just too big. You'd have to have the entire U.S. Navy out there, round the clock, continuously towing little nets. And it's produced so fast, they wouldn't be able to keep up," he said.
Ebbesmeyer said in 10,000 years scientists might find a layer of plastic in the ground and use this as evidence of "the plastic people."
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
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Its going to be the change of humanities Consiousness that will change everything and nothing else will do it, no one is going to do it for you and why should they, its called baby-sitting.
If you all think there is going to be some kind of a rapture, you all going to be very very disappointed men and women, as there is a much bigger agenda going on here to keep us stuck within our consciousness level, well things will be changing drastically in the coming future.
This is our home, this is our planet, this is our own responsibility to fix, our air is in critical condition, our violent and etc behavior, all of this must change and it will only start with you to change it, no one is going to help you unless you help yourself.
If we all go to another planet, we will do the same exact thing here, we would destroy it. Our technology is currently over our spirituality, and we are all in grave danger as we speak.
If we dont take care of our own @!$%#, we may have a rude awaking, and all that time we could have done something, we did nothing.
Question sir: Are we being used as instruments to destroy our own planet? I say yes
-Credo Mutwa(2 Sanusi left in South Africa/Keeper of true history of africa and exposes rulers to keep our Consciousness To go to a higher level)
This will be cleaned up in the not so far future, when we have disclosure and "new" technology is finally released. But this does not make it any less disgusting.
can you explain that lol. I don't think many people have any idea how bad it is. I have watched so many documentaries on netflix about plastic. We will never be able to clean it up. It will never be profitable so who will do it?
This is definitely the fault of Republicans. It is a little known fact that Republicans use more plastic and discard it into the ocean more than Democrats do. I bet its George Bush's fault... damn him. Thankfully we have Obama to fix it (hope and change). YEAH!!!!!
From a realistic standpoint, biodegradable plastics are probably the ultimate solution, especially plastics which can biodegrade very quickly under exposure from the sunlight. That, and maximizing the recycle value of any plastics which cannot be made biodegradable. There was a recent technology developed which can turn almost any plastic into fuel. This technology should help a great deal to improve the recycle value of non-biodegradable plastics. - Rick Carter
Agree! Maybe make the plastics biodegradable in the presence of salt, specifically to accelerate their degrading in the ocean.
OK Folks! Who in this country is going to launch a new business. "Ocean Recycling". The govenment funded something like this during the Depression to build the shelters & trails in National Parks. This could employ hundreds of thousands of people.
mixed plastic is impossible to recycle. recycling is actually very difficult and not profitable. much of it is shipped to third world countries and they contaminate their bodies picking through it. actual recycling of plastic is a joke meant to make you fell good about buying more plastic.
Yeah, America is more worried about passing a fudge packer law than the environment.
I'll say it once and I'll say it again, Humanities Consciousness must change or mankind will have no future, Nothing else is going to do it, mark my word.
If you all think there is going to be some kind of a rapture, your ALL going to be very highly disappointed men and women and our childern. Our air is also in critical condition There is a much bigger agenda going on here on this planet, to keep our consciousness going to another level, because once we all wake up, the games over.
This is our home, this is our planet, This is our own responsibility, No one is going to help us unless we help each other and figuring out what we really want to create. If we want someone to come down here and take care of our own @!$%# that we didnt take care, we might have a rude awaking, and all that time we could have done something, we did absolutely nothing.
Question sir: Are we being used to destroy our own planet? I say yes.
-Credo Mutwa(2 Sanusi left in South Africa/Keeper of true history or Africa And exposes Ruthless agendas to keep us stuck
How come the article is about "broken down bits of plastic the size of a fingernail" floating in the ocean but then the picture where the video plays is of a pile of garbage on land? Maybe the headline could have mentioned that the plastic patch grew "over the last 40 years"...?
Come on, MSNBC! This is a real enough issue without trying to sensationalize everything. How about a measured, responsible approach to reporting a genuine problem?
Why some of you people are attempting to politicize this is beyond me. The fact is that this disgusting mess was generated by people of all political beliefs, and doubtless not just from the USA. While we are probably the worst offenders, there are other nations around the Pacific Rim that have developed a fondness for plastic. The actual causes of this need to be identified and measures taken to stop them. Is this from ocean dumping of municipal waste? Is this from cruise ships dumping? Is this from beachside slobs too lazy to remove their trash? All of the above? This has been going on for quite some time, probably since plastic became so popular, and will probably be allowed to continue until it becomes so catastrophic that it can't be ignored.
Plastic in fish stomachs? That is so deeply revolting! The fishes' digestive systems probably break down the plastic to some extent, and the chemical byproducts stored in their flesh and fat. It does make me wonder what those chemicals are, and what potential health dangers it poses. After all the hullabaloo about BPA in plastic bottles leaching into the stored contents, with container manufacturers rushing to move away from using BPA and advertising they now have "BPA-Free" products, you would think there would be a concern about testing fish from these waters for these types of chemicals. But that probably will not happen until the cancer rates of the fish-consuming population who consume fish from these waters skyrockets. That may or may not happen in the shorter term, but the old adage about an ounce of prevention is certainly applicable here.
Let's face it, the solution to this problem would be costly, time-consuming, require international cooperation, and be a political problem, with the plastics manufacturers moaning about lower profits, job losses, and fewer sales of Mercedes S550 sedans to their executives, as well as them having to settle for a less than Olympic-sized swimming pool at their mansions. Then the populace accustomed to the light weight and convenience of plastic containers, plates, cups, etc. will whine about having to carry the heavier glass containers, and being forced to recycle them religiously instead of just dumping it into their trash bags. To all of them, and us, I say - too bad! No good will come of inaction, and this is a prime case of justifying "Don't just stand there! Do something!", or our tendency to act at leisure will cause us to repent in haste, when the tipping point is passed, and the previously unpredicted effects begin to amass.
That is what happens when you dump trash in the ocean,Lakes and Rivers..I once went to Acapulco Mexico. About 4am Trash trucks were dumping right on the beach .waves would just suck it in the ocean.....The cost of clean up should be put on the manufacturers of thees products..Stop all Production of plastic .Besides it takes a chain saw to open the dang tang..
...as the late George Carlin said,
"The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…a-hole."
Its all self-Responsibility. Thats one we never focus on and others like Life nor mutual respect.
I agree, its almost time to earth to be renewed, We cant change our consciousness within ourselves until the damages has already been done by then it will be to late to change anything. Earth is getting rdy for the next generation and she cant sustain like this so what other options she has, to clean house, we cant come together, we cant fix or deal with our own @!$%#, this is what I believe 2012 is all about, look at the world that we have all created, are we progressing at all? Are focusing on love,mutual respect or self-responsibility? And the answer is no.
Massive earth changes are already on the horizon, infact we are all in it now, and its about time. I know we are getting alot of help outside of this planet but they can only do so much, this is our responsibility.
Forgot to add the word Instruments after Used as at the Credo Mutwa line.
If you all ever get chance YouTube George Carlin "Save the Planet"..
He discusses the subject of everyone trying to save something. "Save the trees, save the beesm save the whales, save the snails....Save The Planet?!!...Are you kidding me?! We can't even take care of each other never mind an entire planet!..." and that "..this planets been around for billions of years and when it's done with us it'll just shake us off like a bad case of fleas...a surface nuisance.." But mostly how he thinks that is why human were put on this planet. It didn't know how to invent plastic. That it answers the question "why are we here?..."Plastic" and that this planet isn't going anywhere..."we are!..we're all going away folks.. Yep pack your @!$%# folks.."
Kind of funny coming from George Carlin but also sad at the same time and makes you realize how screwed we all are..
"I swim .......but I wish I never learned ........the water is too polluted with germs"
~ Bradley Noel
Fear not mortals.
When I tire of your doings,
I shall purge you from my back,
like the parasites you are.
Sincerely,
Mother Nature
AMEN!!!
so if they can take pictures of the mess why can't we clean up the mess? lots of designers are making things out of recycled plastic so cast a net and tow it in?
yeah a super fine net the size of Texas. design me a 1000 year land fill lol
were only gonna die for our arrogance
Ban single use plastic bags in the US please. Several other countries have...
Hmmm....and no one is talking about the 2000 MILE WIDE debris field working its way to our west coast, full of Japanese bones, house parts, boats, radiation, etc....and if people are so worried about this, they should start with themselves and stop drinking out of those water bottles, and throwing them all over the place.
All of the oceans will look like this soon, so why fight it?
Treat it like an oil spill and clean it up.
we are going to die because that's what happens. There is not one thing in the universe that is static, everything changes. This story is an update from a previous update. The last update from the original story stated that the patch was the size of Texas, so I would think that it should be the size of Texas and maybe Oregon and part of Wisconsin.
Two major tsunamis in the past 7 years, hmm how much plastic was sucked back out into the ocean during those events?
The green movement should concentrate on a system to mine this great area of waste plastic, it probably has an enormous value. Personally I prefer to drink from a glass, but it is not as hip as caring around a bottle of Perrier.
Carrying around a bottle of Perrier for any length of time is pretty pointless, as the carbonation diminishes to near zero pretty quickly, and then it's basically just plain water. And it's imported, which has a carbon footprint much larger than locally produced sparkling water. I wouldn't turn down a glass of Perrier, but I won't by a botte of it. I like my water carbonated most of the time, but I buy the cheapest supermarket brand seltzer in the aluminum cans, which I then recycle. Tastes just as good to me. And saves me a bundle.
Is there no part of this once pristine planet safe from our filth?
Nuh-uh!