Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific

Any coordinates so I can get a look at this in google earth?

I found this: http://www.mindfu...ov02.htm

We need to figure out how to "mine"plastic from water. There must be a way.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!!!

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!

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.)

checkout this article for more information on it:
http://www.latime...ll.story

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.

Al Gore

Wants to take credit for the garbage patch.

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!

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.

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.