Did you know there’s an enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii?!
Per the SF Chronicle, the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” has been growing at a “brisk rate” since the 1950s. The technical name for the area is the North Pacific subtropical gyre. It’s bounded on all sides by a clockwise flow of currents around the Pacific basin. The result of this is that anything that drifts into the area stays there, because that part of the ocean does not mix with surrounding currents.
Previously, much of what was trapped inside the area had been biodegradable. Now it’s full of plastic, which is unbiodegradable. I wonder how large it has to get before we do something about it.
