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Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific

An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.
Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International
» Next Article in Space & Earth science - Environment: Calif. preparing to sue EPA

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Posted by mdorre 10/22/07 19:31
Rank: 3.29/5 after 7 votes
Any coordinates so I can get a look at this in google earth?
Posted by JMB 10/22/07 19:49
Rank: 3.25/5 after 4 votes
Posted by drivin98 10/22/07 21:02
Rank: 2.5/5 after 4 votes
We need to figure out how to "mine"plastic from water. There must be a way.
Posted by DLG 10/22/07 22:40
Rank: 2.4/5 after 5 votes
I am a big fan of limiting the use of plastic, but this is the Coastal Commission's own floating island of garbage. Lame attempt to convince people to stop using plastic bags & bottles.
Posted by CodeRancher 10/23/07 10:12
Rank: 3.4/5 after 5 votes
I've got to agree with DLG, this has got to be something from the propaganda machine. TX is more than 700 miles across, covering 261,000 square miles, and this trash thing is supposedly twice that? C'mon, how stupid do we look? SF to the big island is less than 2300 miles, if this was true there'd be more plastic trash than ocean between those two points. And exactly what is it that holds it all together? And just how does it maintain that position against prevailing currents? Clearly this is nothing more than a great big wad of hooey.
Posted by saucerfreak2012 10/23/07 10:44
Rank: 2.8/5 after 5 votes
Any pictures?... pretty amazing it stays put. The sun hasn't degraded the plastic in all that time? I guess the polymer fairies are still hard at work.

Sorry, not buying it. Let's see more supporting data. If this was for real enviro activists would've long since blown the whistle...

Let's get all thet plastic and convert it back into petroleum so we can afford to heat our homes and drive our vehicles again!
Posted by Elenneth 10/24/07 12:50
Rank: 3.25/5 after 4 votes
Somewhere? If it's really that big, you'd think they'd be able to see it pretty easily. How could you miss something "twice the size of Texas?"

I am definately dubious.
Posted by Elenneth 10/24/07 15:24
Rank: 3/5 after 3 votes
I have to admit that (at least to me) the description of garbage as an "enormous island of trash" doesn't really lend itself to much else but envisioning it as just that--a solid island of trash.

Perhaps they need to elaborate on it a little more, otherwise it sure sounds a bit strange.
Posted by none 10/26/07 00:09
Rank: 2.33/5 after 3 votes
There is no way a garbage heap of 622,000 sq miles is just floating around in the ocean this story is complete bs id like to talk to the scientist that thought we were stupid enough to believe this!!!
Posted by vlam67 10/26/07 07:22
Rank: 1.25/5 after 4 votes
Cheers to the retards who adopted sea-dumping of garbage and those users of this service who are now outraged by the incomprehensible mess they created!
ha ha, GIGO = Garbage In, Garbage Out!
Posted by whatastupidarticle 10/26/07 12:01
Rank: 3/5 after 4 votes
Why is this article on a 'science' site? It consists of four sentences, two of which are quotes. Who was this reporter, a fourth grader? Or is that the intended audience? There's no science here at all, no research, no background, no explanation, no independent verification of anything. If you spread 3.5 million tons over an area twice the size of Texas, you get 6 lbs every 1000 square yards. That can NOT be a solid mass of anything. (for the numerically challenged: 3M tons/.5M sq mi = 6 tons/sq mi = 18000 lbs/3M sq yds = 6/1000.)
Posted by skyahn83 10/26/07 19:58
Rank: 4.33/5 after 3 votes
checkout this article for more information on it:
http://www.latime...ll.story
Posted by skyahn83 10/26/07 20:45
Rank: 4/5 after 3 votes
Also, its not the trash that is twice the size of Texas. The gyre where all of the trash is located is twice the size of Texas. But a giant island of trash sure does make one hell of a catchy title.
Posted by holoman 10/28/07 20:53
Rank: 1/5 after 4 votes
Al Gore

Wants to take credit for the garbage patch.



Posted by crabby 11/01/07 13:55
Rank: 1.33/5 after 3 votes
Al Gore created this? Wow! Wish he'd stop flying around in his Gulf Stream jet and causing carbon pollution and throwing trash out his window!
Posted by eddie 11/21/07 14:25
Rank: 2/5 after 3 votes
Posted by Denra 04/11/08 14:09
Not rated yet.
I too was skeptical. Why has this not been more in the mainstream media?

So I did a search with google maps, starting in California, and moving towards Hawaii, with satellite image view, at closest possible magnification. I found it, right where they said it would be. My coordinates for the trash "island" for google maps are 33.394759,-124.969482 plug these in and you can see it...looks more like a mass of floating trash than a real island, and appears to be about 2 or 3 miles in diameter, not the "2 times the size of Texas", but still very worrisome. It's really not surprising since it is a known occurence that cruise ships and container ships regularly dump their trash and sewage in the open ocean.

I agree there needs to an effort made to clean this up.
Posted by fingers 04/23/08 11:40
Not rated yet.
It may be hard to believe, as DLG and CodeRancher suggest, BUT it is all true.
Remember, people used to believe the earth was flat. This is a serious problem with the ecological health of the Pacific ocean and needs to be taken seriously. Check out the LA Times from July 2006 for a comprehensive look at the problem. This is not propoganda to get us to stop using plastic: this is a VERY serious problem that is a direct result of our shameful conspicuous consumption of products that are detrimental to our environment. Unfortunately, we are being held "over a barrel"- of oil, that is.
And if you don't believe that, just go and try to purchase anything that isn't packaged in plastic.
So the next time you complain about high gas prices or global warming remember: everytime you
waste petroleum or a petroleum based product (like: throwing a plastic garbage bag away instead of recycling it) you are only contributing to higher gasoline prices and the degradation of our enviroment. Mother nature is not happy, and she's letting us know in the only way she knows how.