Expedition Sets Sail to the Great Plastic Vortex (TIME)

By Bryan Walsh Saturday, Aug. 01, 2009

On film, many a desert island castaway has put a message in a bottle and cast it out to sea, hoping it would someday reach land. Sorry, all you modern-day Robinson Crusoes — try that with a plastic bottle in real life, and your message will likely end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, bobbing in a floating collection of trash known as the Plastic Vortex. It's an accumulation of plastic debris swept into the Pacific — whether directly from beaches or flowing out of rivers — and carried by equatorial currents into a swirling pattern to one spot between Hawaii and the mainland U.S.

Plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic toys — even last year's Crocs — end up in the shifting vortex, which some scientists estimate to be twice the size of Texas. And as plastic use increases, especially in rapidly growing developing nations on the western end of the Pacific, that vortex will continue to grow. "It's huge," notes Doug Woodring, an entrepreneur and ocean conservationist in Hong Kong. But "unfortunately the ocean is a big place, and once it's out of sight, it's out of mind."
(See TIME's photos: Fragile Planet)

Woodring is trying to change that. With help from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woodring and several colleagues in ocean conservation are launching a two-ship expedition to the plastic vortex, to explore it, take photographs and video and alert the public to the growing threat of ocean waste. "We need to make people realize what we are doing to our ocean," says Woodring.

On Aug. 2 and 4, two ships — the New Horizon from Scripps in San Diego, and the Kaisei from San Francisco — will depart from California for nearly monthlong missions to the vortex. The New Horizon will focus on scientific research, looking at the impact of the plastic vortex on marine life in the Pacific. As the plastic bakes in the sun, it slowly breaks down, leaching toxic chemicals into the water that may harm fish — and eventually us, when we eat them.

The Kaisei — the word means "Ocean Planet" in Japanese — will experiment with ways to clean up the debris without harming marine life in and around the vortex. People will be able to observe the progress of the mission from the project's website, which should offer one of the first up-close views of the biggest trash heap in the world.
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more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914145,00.html?xid=rss-topstories-cnnpartner

http://www.projectkaisei.org/

seen on Google Earth?

Fishermen and others who have sailed the area have reported "patches" of concentrated floating debris. Relative to the expanse of the North Pacific Ocean, sightings of large debris items or large concentrations of debris are not very common. Most of the reports we have received and studies that have been conducted report that the observation of large items that are visible from a ship’s deck are few and far between. A majority of the debris observed in the STCZ is small plastic pieces. Small debris pieces are difficult to see due to their size, and a majority of these pieces are suspended at or just below the surface of the water, thus making it difficult to observe. For these reasons, the debris, or “patch” of debris is not visible using satellite photos.

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html#2

Is there a great vortex somewhere in the Atlantic, or does all plastic eventually find its way to the Pacific?

Much of the research on oceanic movement and concentration of marine debris has focused on the Pacific Ocean possibly because these mechanisms lead to the accumulation, and thus impacts, of marine debris across the Hawaiian Archipelago. In particular, research has been done on the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, a known area of debris accumulation in the N. Pacific. Additionally, perhaps due to the numerous protected species and resources within the Hawaiian Archipelago (e.g., endangered Hawaiian monk seal), research on threats, such as marine debris, tend to rise in priority.

This is not to say that marine debris in the Atlantic Ocean is not important. There has been research conducted and published on marine debris in the Atlantic, mainly on ingestion in Atlantic species of sea turtles and seabirds or nearshore trawls for plastic particles. Still, there is a paucity of literature on marine debris in the high-seas Atlantic Ocean. Much like in the Pacific there is a North Atlantic Gyre made up of four major currents – North Equatorial, Gulf Stream, North Atlantic, and Canary Current. There is also a North Atlantic Subtropical Convergence Zone (STCZ); however, we currently know of no research on debris concentration within this STCZ.

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html#7



I would have thought that the Sargasso Sea would be an obvious natural trap for floating plastic. Wikipedia evidently agrees:

"Owing to surface currents, the Sargasso accumulates a high concentration of non-biodegradable plastic waste.<5> This huge vortex of garbage is similar to another ocean phenomenon, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea#Ecology

Unfortunately, the reference cited does not address the situation Atlantic Ocean specifically. I suspect sea turtle researchers might be the best informed people on this issue -- plastic bags and fishing nets are the bane of their existence.

floating recycling barge next to it and do what you think is right.... barring that, earth may float that thing up the San Franscisco bay and plug things up for a time.

I am impressed they will be using the Brigantine Kaisei. In an age when most all commercial and research vessels are powered by Diesel. Not to mention that they are so much prettier to look at.