“Going to the ocean to remove floating plastic particles is like standing on the top of a skyscraper with a vacuum cleaner to remove air pollution. There is no island to retrieve.”
The 5 Gyres has discovered something about ocean pollution through its most recent ocean travels. Contrary to popular belief, they say there is no floating island of trash.
“That is the menace of plastic pollution. It’s everywhere, thinly distributed, and extremely impractical to clean up at sea.”
According to their research, much of the ocean’s plastic either absorbs as chemicals, like PCBs, PAHs and other persistent pollutants, and some photodegrades into smaller particles more dense than water. Much of the rest eventually washes up on beaches.
“If you want to clean the gyre, clean your beach.”
“The idea of cleanup at sea is no longer a sensible option, knowing that an island twice the size of Texas is actually a thin soup 2/3rds the surface of the planet. Sensible solutions now focus on preventing the flow of waste to waves in the first place.”
What are your thoughts on these findings? Let us know!
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