Or call it the 'Plastic Soup'. It is not a tourist's paradise and is probably not on anyone’s itinerary yet. You might not even have heard about it. But here it is - The world's largest dumping ground. It is also 'infamously' known as the Pacific Trash Vortex.

The world's largest landfill is located in the Northern Pacific ocean, a slow moving area of sea currents (the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre). It is an oceanic desolation, populated with phytoplanktons but scarce fish and other sea life. Uninhabited and untraversed, its chief 'flora' is the massive mass of floating detritus. The size of this mass is believed to be mindboggingly equivalent to that of the continental United States.



This huge garbage island is actually two different but linked areas –

The Eastern Garbage Patch, lying between Hawaii and California and said to be the size of Texas.
The Western Garbage Patch, from the east of Japan to the west of Hawaii.

The patches are connected by a thin 6,000-mile long current called the Subtropical Convergence Zone. The patches are swirling masses of debris and junk, human and otherwise collected from all corners. From discarded electronics, to children's toys...it contains all. Most of it originating on land. The chief concentration though is of the old culprit - plastic.

The Environmental Impact

Plastic's refrain as always is that it is not biodegradable and this is another damning display. In some areas the concentrations is one million pieces of plastic per square mile! Historically, the debris used to biodegrade, but with increasing consumption of plastic around the world, the polymer has taken over the entire mass. With photodegradation, the plastics are now degenerating into other forms of pollutants. As the plastic gets broken up into smaller fragments (called nurdles) they are ingested by filter feeders like jellyfish and other marine fauna. This is the entry point of plastics into the food chain. Toxicity from such plastic pollutants diffuses into the ocean water and thus into the food chain.

A study on the Black Footed Albatross on Midway Islands (off the Eastern Garbage Patch) revealed that of the 500,000 chicks born every year 200,000 of them die, many of them by choking on plastic fed to them by their parents, who mistake it for food.

The Action

Experts have discounted the idea of trawling the ocean area for trash as it is physically not viable. The garbage as mentioned earlier is not only expansive but is also dispersed into smaller areas submerged and floating hundred feet below the ocean surface. Trawling over such a vast area would also harm the endemic ecosystem. So it finally leaves us with timely intervention and management of future waste. All pointers are towards the absolute elimination of plastic and better recycling processes on land...and forceful government legislations.

Source: Wikipedia

LA Times

NY Times