Science Daily March 22, 2018 "Great Pacific Garbage Patch growing rapidly, study shows." L. Lebreton The picture is linked with the website containing the article. We have been polluting the ocean for years and it has been only getting worse. Pollution in the ocean affects many species of fish and makes the quality of the water
uninhabitable. The pollution releases chemicals into the water making it dangerous to everyone. This is a problem that is happening now and this problem is only getting increasingly dangerous. A new study has shown that one area in the pacific ocean called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the area. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be located between California and Hawaii and it is the largest accumulation zone for ocean plastics on Earth. To be able to increase the amount of surface area of plastic to be surveyed, they used a C-130 Hercules aircraft. It was fitted with advanced sensors that allowed it to do complex scans to confirm the amount of trash located in the garbage patch. The analysis revealed that 92% of the mass in the garbage patch consists of larger objects, and 8% of the mass contains micro plastics, with pieces smaller than 5mm in size. This is intriguing because it was thought beforehand that the garbage patch consisted with smaller plastic objects instead of huge plastic objects. This information surprised the pollution science team and the analysis shed some light on the situation of the garbage patch. Hopefully now the results of the analysis will provide the team with new data to develop and test their cleanup technology. Though the analysis underlines the urgency of dealing with the pollution situation and if it doesn't get fixed soon, the amount of plastics will increase tenfold. The reason that this garbage patch exists is because of multiple reasons. One reason is that plastic is hard to recycle for more use and it isn't easy to get rid of. Two, most people get rid of it by leaving it on the ground which due to winds and other environmental circumstances, the plastic eventually makes it's way to the ocean. And finally, plastics takes more than decades to decompose and while it still exists, it will continue to poison our world today. I am happy that the team is trying their best to find ways to clean up the trash but I am worried that the trash will go back onto the land. Then, the trash will find it's way back to the ocean. I believe there is no easy way of cleaning of plastic so I hope that we can find a way to reduce the amount of plastic made so we have less pollution in the water. I will comment on Rachna, Matthew, and Maddy's blogs!
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AuthorI am a big video gamer and video game enthusiast. I love a lot of video games and I am currently playing Miitopia! Archives
June 2018
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