Plastic Ocean Soup

danny.clark — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:03:07 +0000

Let’s talk about something near and dear to our hearts…the ocean gyres. Just in case you haven’t heard of a gyre let me explain. A gyre is a swirling ocean vortex caused by winds and ocean currents, causing things that float to accumulate in these vortex areas. The North pacific gyre is about the size of Texas.

Gyres accumulate trash, where with help from the sun, it is turned into a plastic particle soup. Think of it as a bowl of soup the size of Texas.

Most of the plastics we use float. Floating on the surface they are bombarded by the suns rays, eventually breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. Even as small pieces they continue to float and are often mistaken as food by small fish and other sea creatures. Small fish are part of the food chain they are eaten by large fish and many of those are eaten by humans. Plastic can be passed on to us when we eat fish that have made plastic part of their diet.

An interesting fact about plastics is that not all of them float. For example, PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) the plastic used for water and soft drink bottles doesn’t float. It will float if air is trapped in the bottle, but like other plastics floating on the surface, it will be broken down by the sun. Once the PET container no longer holds air it will sink to the bottom. The caps on most plastic bottles aren’t made of PET plastic they don’t sink. Plastic caps will break down into smaller pieces and become part of the goo building up in our ocean gyres.

It’s important that we find a way to clean up our oceans and keep plastic from entering our waters. We need to develop plastics that biodegrade in our oceans and streams. We need plastics that should they get in our oceans, sink to the bottom, and not leave harmful by products.

Max

ENSO Bottles

www.ensobottles.com

ENSO Plastics Blog » ocean

Plastic Ocean Soup