Pacific garbage patch is far larger than feared: study

Pacific garbage patch is far larger than feared: study

What has happened?

The vast dump of plastic waste swirling in the Pacific ocean is now bigger than France, Germany and Spain combined — far larger than previously feared — and is growing rapidly, a study published on Thursday warned

80,000 tonnes of trash float as a mass in the ocean

Researchers based in the Netherlands used a fleet of boats and aircraft to scan the immense accumulation of bottles, containers, fishing nets and microparticles known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” (GPGP) and found about 80,000 tonnes of buoyant plastic currently in the GPGP

16 times greater

That’s around the weight of 500 jumbo jets, and up to sixteen times greater than the plastic mass uncovered there in previous studies.

Quantity of plastic shocking

They found that the dump now contains around 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, posing a dual threat to marine life.

Microplastics may enter the food chain

• Microplastics, tiny fragments of plastic smaller than 50mm in size that make up the vast majority of items in the GPGP, can enter the food chain when swallowed by fish.
• The pollutants they contain become more concentrated as they work their way up through the food web

Ghost Fishing

The other environmental impact comes from the larger debris, especially the fishing nets

These net fragments kill marine life by trapping fish and animals such as turtles in a process known as ‘ghost fishing’.