Earth Day Remembers North Pacific Trash Gyre

23. April 2008 by HealingMindN.

On this particular Earth Day, it’s most important for “civilised” people like ourselves to take note of evils we don’t see everyday, yet affect us on a daily basis.

The North Pacific Trash Gyre is one of those out of sight, out of mind evils that we cause chronic health ailments in everyone who enjoys seafood and every living creature who has ever lived off the Northern Pacific Gyre as a food source.

Consider the food chain wherein pets, farm animals, livestock, and agricultural products are fed seafood by-products from this hideous trash pool. We may not be able to see it very clearly, but there’s no way of escaping from it.

Below is a recent article written for Good Times Weekly, Santa Cruz, California, of which I provide an extract. On this Earth Day, it’s important for us to consider the consequences of our attitudes and actions when using throw away plastics.

The Return-on-Investment just doesn’t add up. No matter how cheap the plastic product is to make or recycle, the toll on life for this entire planet is just too great. A decadent, “throw away” culture is simply not sustainable - on any planet.

Message In A Bottle

Written by Amanda Martinez
Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Trash twice the size of the continental United States is collecting in the North Pacific, but here’s the kicker: most of it is made to last forever.

One sunny day 10 years ago, Captain Charles Moore was sailing home from a yacht race in Hawaii when he steered his boat off-course in search of a little adventure in the North Pacific. Heading north in his 50-foot catamaran, Alguita, Moore wanted to graze the lower Eastern corner of a rarely sailed region, the North Pacific subtropical gyre, before making his way home to Long Beach, California.

The most remarkable characteristic of the gyre, a 10-million-square-foot, clockwise-churning vortex of four converging ocean currents, was supposed to be its unique weather pattern. It’s a high-pressure area, meaning that warm air hovers over it. The air is still. There’s no wind. Picture an immense oceanic desert. Frustrated sailors long ago christened the area “the doldrums” and avoided it, as do predatory fish who find no prey within its calm, nutrient-lean depths. “It almost looks like an oil slick, or like a mirror. It’s really beautiful, the phenomena of a very smooth ocean,” says researcher Dr. Marcus Eriksen.

But as Moore ventured into the gyre, his fascination with weather patterns gave way to a different reaction-alarm. In this most remote part of the ocean, his expectation of the pristine was met by blight. A vast array of trash-bottle caps, plastic bottles, fishing floats, wrappers, plastic bags and fragments, many tiny plastic fragments-stretched before Moore as far as the eye could see. His alarm turned to shock. It took him a week to sail through the gyre, the debris surrounding his boat the entire time. (continue…)

For more information on the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, visit algalita.org.

WATCH VIDEO: Algalita Marine Research Foundation’s Our Synthetic Sea

To watch Save Our Shore’s video on the July 5, 2007 cleanup, visit gtweekly.com. To find out more about volunteering for Santa Cruz’s CCD or July 5, 2008 cleanup, visit saveourshores.org or call 408-462-5660. To contact Aqua Safaris SCUBA Center, go to aquasafaris.com or call 479-4386.

Related Articles and Blogs:

The plastic killing fields

Trashed Across the Pacific Ocean, plastics, plastics, everywhere. (Charles Moore)

Floating, Texas-sized garbage patch threatens Pacific marine sanctuaryKrill catch from the gyreWhy there are no pictures of the North Pacific Trash GyreNorth Pacific Gyre: Never fear, the feds are here!Nightmare on the high seas.Images & video from the North Pacific gyre.Earth Day is April 22nd - Join Sierra Club.Celebrate Earth Day - for the month of April only receive a free camper bag with membership to Sierra Club.

Method of Detecting Plastic in Solution

The Tyndall effect is the effect of light scattering on particles in colloid systems, such as suspensions or emulsions. It is named after the 19th century Irish scientist John Tyndall. The Tyndall effect is used to tell the difference between the different types of mixtures, namely solution, colloid, and suspension. For example, the Tyndall effect is noticeable when car headlamps are used in fog.

The light with shorter wavelengths scatters better, thus the color of scattered light has a bluish tint. This is also the reason why the sky looks blue when viewed away from the sun: the blue light from the sun is scattered to a greater degree and is therefore visible far from its source. This effect occurs because short wavelengths of light towards the blue end of the spectrum hit the air molecules in the earth’s atmosphere and are reflected down to the earth’s surface. Longer wavelengths towards the red end of the spectrum are less affected by the particles and pass on through the earth’s atmosphere.

Penetrating Radar (PenRad), technology invented by Stanford Research Institute, should have the sensitivity for detecting these shorter wavelengths and beyond into the ultraviolet range within the North Pacific Gyre’s plastic soup.

PenRad could probably take excellent satellite videos as well as stills of the trash gyre at any depth. The question remains: Is SRI willing to devote their equipment to finding evidence to implicate industries that hinge on their own (plastic, waste disposal, etc.)?

On the other hand, If you decide to take a sailing trip to the doldrums (please don’t tell me you’re taking one of those nasty cruise ships spilling garbage every where), you can have your digital camera converted at Life Pixel to receive the ultra violet spectrum. You can get your own evidence.

EXTRA:

Plastic-to-Energy
The Polymer Energy™ system turns waste plastic into energy. It is designed to primarily process polyolefins i.e. polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

The Polymer Energy™ system is robust by design, and can easily handle plastic that is contaminated with other kinds of waste such as metals, glass, dirt, water, etc. The system can tolerate up to 30% of other waste in the input plastic waste stream. As a result, a key advantage of this process is that the plastic wastes do not need to be pre-sorted, cleaned or dried prior to processing, which in turn significantly reduces the overall cost of operation.

Polymer Energy™ offers a viable, economical and environmentally responsible alternative to current methods of recycling and disposal of plastic waste. The Polymer Energy™ system uses catalytic pyrolysis to efficiently convert plastics (primarily polyolefins) into crude oil.

Polymer Energy, LLC
4201 Woodland Road, P.O. Box 69
Circle Pines, MN 55014 U.S.A.
Phone: +1 (763) 225-6907
Fax: +1 (763) 225-6645

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The only problem remains with the other type of disposable plastics. Let’s have a close look at this stubject by examining the plastics acceptable for the polymer energy conversion system:The plastics waste fed into the system should adhere to the following guidelines:

Resin Code	Description	Guideline
	PET	Acceptable within certain limits
	HDPE	Acceptable
	PVC	Not recommended
	LDPE, LLDPE	Acceptable
	PP	Acceptable
	PS	Not Acceptable
	Other	Varies depending upon type of plastic

OK, it looks like #3, #6, and, perhaps, #7 disposable plastics are the troublemakers. Let’s take a closer look at their application and composition as extracted from the following article: Plastic Containers - What to look for

Here’s a quick breakdown of plastic resin types:

#1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE)
Product examples: Disposable soft drink and water bottles, cough-syrup bottles

#2 high density polyethylene (HDPE)/
Product examples: Milk jugs, toys, liquid detergent bottles, shampoo bottles

#3 polyvinyl chloride (V or PVC)
Product examples: Meat wrap, cooking oil bottles, plumbing pipes

#4 low density polyethylene (LDPE)
Product examples: Cling wrap, grocery bags, sandwich bags

#5 polypropylene (PP)
Product examples: Syrup bottles, yogurt cups/tubs, diapers

#6 polystyrene (PS)
Product examples: Disposable coffee cups, clam-shell take-out containers

#7 other (misc.; usually polycarbonate, or PC, but also polylactide, or PLA, plastics made from renewable resources - renewable meaning plant based)
Product examples: Baby bottles, some reusable water bottles, stain-resistant food-storage containers, medical storage containers (to be fair, #7 should have been subdivided into further categories like #8  plastics since it contains more than one category of plastic of which polyactides are the safest)

It just so happens that #3 polyvinyl chloride, #6 polystyrene, and #7 polyactide are photosensitive, therefore, easiest to decompose into the plastic soup that makes up the North Pacific Trash Gyre.

Fortunately, polyactides are made from corn, potatoes, sugar cane and anything else with a high starch content rather than all the petroleum based plastics as state above - and was created to decompose quickly and safely. Therefore, #3 and #6 plastics are still the biggest troublemakers even when instituting the polymer energy conversion program.

Please read Plastic Containers in full because it contains necessary public health hazard warnings. Here is a further extract:

Plastics to Avoid

#3 PVC

#3 polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is often used frequently in cling wraps for meat. However, PVC contains softeners called phthalates that interfere with hormonal development, and its manufacture and incineration release dioxin, a potent carcinogen and hormone disruptor. Vinyl chloride, the primary building block of PVC, is a known human carcinogen that also poses a threat to workers during manufacture.

#6 PS

Extruded polystyrene (#6 PS; commonly known as Styrofoam) is used in take-out containers and cups, and non-extruded PS is used in clear disposable takeout containers, disposable plastic cutlery and cups. Both forms of PS can leach styrene into food; styrene is considered a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It may also disrupt hormones or affect reproduction.

#7 PC

#7 Polycarbonate (PC) is found in baby bottles, 5-gallon water bottles, water-cooler bottles and the epoxy linings of tin food cans. PC is composed of a hormone-disrupting chemical called bisphenol A, which has been linked to a wide variety of problems such as cancer and obesity.

Please also show your support for renewable energy companies like Polymer Energy

Thanks for your time,

Sincerely,

Randolph Fabian Directo

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