Garbage Patch Crew Measures It’s Scale
As the Pacific Garbage Patch grows with hefty cinch sack pushed over board around the Pacific rim mother nature grinds it into smaller and smaller pieces that are consumed by animals on down the food chain.
During a plastic at sea voyage the Sea Education Association’s 134' research vessel sailed and motored from San Diego to Honolulu. The crew sampled the ocean for plastic over 36 days and 2,600 miles. Plankton nets, dip nets water sampling and visual surveys were used to track plastics in a thin section of the rotating currents that carry the plastic garbage.
The final total for the trip: 3,489 pieces of larger macrodebris, microscopic plastic pieces in all water samples and 66,077 small but visible pieces. These small fragments land on Oregon beaches by the thousands.