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A sea of plastics

Posted by: Maven on February 27, 2010 at 7:59 am

From U. S. News & World Report:

“Recent studies show that the oceans may hold more “garbage patches” of fine plastic flotsam than scientists realized and that the fragments extend well below the sea surface.

Most of these items are the size of fingernail clippings or smaller. They are the wave-shattered remnants of items such as rubbish, abandoned fishing gear and floats from fishing nets and scientific instruments. These plastic bits are especially common in a region of the Pacific Ocean southwest of California that is sometimes called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Recent cruises reveal that there’s more garbage in this patch than often meets the eye, oceanographer Giora Proskurowski of the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass., reported February 24 at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences meeting.

Scientists often tow fine mesh nets behind their boats to conduct a census of floating debris, Proskurowski said. But if researchers tow their nets just at the surface, especially on windy days, they’re likely finding only a fraction of the debris that’s actually present. … “

Continue reading this article from U.S. News & World Report by clicking here.

February 27, 2010 · Filed Under Oceans & Beaches

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