“A little-known island continent of floating toxic plastic garbage, TWICE the size of Texas, is growing in the pacific between California and Hawaii. Officially known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, until it can be taxed, U.S. officials will continue to ignore it. I heard of it once many years ago, but it apparently has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950’s, and now consists of 80% plastic. It has also been called Gilligan’s Island, from the trashy TV sitcom that won’t go away.”
The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii.
… Google Image Search with some results …
The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.
[Link via BoingBoing]
Its interesting. You realize that garbage makes it out into the ocean. You go to a beach after a storm and almost always there is something on the beach. Its a shame that as much as California preaches how we need to be nice to the environment its our state that produces a large amount of it. All the pictures I found of the garbage washing up on shore, and most of it seemed to be Oregon, Washington and Hawaii.
Tags: bizarre, Environment, Science, Weird
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