Part 2- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch


Hello again and welcome back, or just welcome to The Planet or Plastic blogg.

My first post was just an introduction about general topics, and today it will be about Mother Nature and her skills.....


Have you ever heard about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Honestly, I hadn’t until earlier this semester! From my biology teacher.
I definitely knew about the issue of plastic waste in the ocean because I follow different accounts about it on Instagram, and you can see it a lot on Facebook for example. The photos/videos, and places people can travel to today is a lot wider than before and we are now more aware than ever about the massive amount of plastic waste in the ocean. 

We know that the plastic waste float around everywhere in the ocean, but it mostly piles up in larger areas due to wind and currents in the ocean called patches. Or because Mother Nature is helping us clean it up, it’s like she’s sweeping it into piles in the house for us to throw out. At least that’s one way to see it if you want to be a little philosophical, or you can look at it in the scientific way, it doesn’t matter, the problem still exists! 
If all the waste was more spread out it would be even harder to cover those massive areas with boats and gear to retrieve the waste from the ocean than it already is. So thank you Mother Nature for still helping us clean up our own mess. 

Gyre are also called vortex, or patch.

















The Great Pacific Garbage Patch also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex is a specific area in The North Pacific Ocean, located between Hawaii and California where plastic/garbage + fishing gear waste is the largest garbage patch in the ocean. It is proved to be THREE TIMES THE SIZE OF FRANCE!!!! To make it easier for you to understand and believe it, here is a short, not even 3 minute long video about The Great Pacific Garbage patch, along with an article if you want to read more.





The video was made by https://www.theoceancleanup.com/ ,which is a Dutch Non-Profit project with a goal to clean up 50% of The Garbage Patch every 5 years. They have partnerships with a lot of different companies, such as Maersk, AkzoNobel, The Government of Netherlands, and other marine companies. 
If you go to the bottom of their website you can even join the team, or contribute with a donation to help out. It is for a very good cause, and if you are not a student reading this you definitely should donate any amount.
As for you students without an income yet, you are allowed to contribute with simpler things, such as getting rid of plastic bottles using a reusable bottle, and getting reusable bags for when going grocery shopping, and then when you get a job you can donate what you can.

In this article by National Geographic they discuss how the project will work, and also if it even will work. It is an interesting and easy article about an advanced but important project. It will take you 5 minutes to read!
Since we live in a stressful world with work, school, hobbies, and relationships I write the time of the videos and articles so you don’t have to stress out even more about the world “article” thinking it will take you 40 minutes to read. 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/09/ocean-cleanup-plastic-pacific-garbage-patch-news/?user.testname=none



Artwork made by me



Images of how "The Ocean Clean Up" will trap the waste in the Pacific Garbage Patch



Thank you for reading! Until next week!




Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 23, 2018 at 5:26 PM

    I really enyoy reading your blog! Good job xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownOctober 25, 2018 at 6:19 AM

      Thank you Josefine! There will be more posts coming so keep tuned in.

      Delete
  2. UnknownOctober 24, 2018 at 12:39 AM

    Very good and distinct information in your post! A true eye-opener!
    Well done Jojo! I am proud of you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownOctober 24, 2018 at 12:41 AM

    Mum :)

    ReplyDelete

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