(CNN) -- A marine expedition of environmentalists has confirmed
the bad news it feared -- the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"
extends even further than previously known.
Organized by two non-profit groups -- the Algalita Marine Research
Foundation and the 5 Gyres Institute -- the expedition is sailing
from the Marshall Islands to Japan through a "synthetic soup"
of plastic in the North Pacific Ocean on a 72-feet yacht called the
Sea Dragon, provided by Pangaea Exploration.
The area is part of one of the ocean's five tropical gyres --
regions where bodies of water converge, with currents delivering high
concentrations of plastic debris. The Sea Dragon is visiting the
previously unexplored western half of the North Pacific gyre --
situated below the 35th parallel, and home to a massive expanse of
plastic particles known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"
-- to look for plastic pollution and study its effect on marine life.
Leading the expedition is Marcus Eriksen, a former U.S. marine and
Ph.D student from University of Southern California.
Our nets come up with a handful of plastic fragments at a time, in
every trawl we've done for the last thousand miles.
Marcus
Eriksen, expedition lead
er
"We've been finding lots of micro plastics, all the size of a
grain of rice or a small marble," Eriksen said via satellite
phone. "We drag our nets and come up with a small handful, like
confetti -- 10, 20, 30 fragments at a time. That's how it's been,
every trawl we've done for the last thousand miles."
Eriksen, who has sailed through all five gyres, said this
confirmed for him "that the world's oceans are 'plasticized.'
Everywhere you go in the ocean, you're going to find this plastic
waste."
Besides documenting the existence of plastic pollution, the
expedition intends to study how long it takes for communities of
barnacles, crabs and molluscs to establish, whether the plastic can
serve as a raft for species to cross continents, and the prevalence
of chemical pollutants.
On a second leg from Tokyo to Hawaii departing May 30, the team
expect to encounter material dislodged by the Japanese tsunami.
"We'll be looking for debris that's sub-surface: overturned
boats, refrigerators, things that wind is not affecting,"
Eriksen said. "We'll get an idea of how much is out there,
what's going on and what it's carrying with it, in terms of toxins."
Scripps Institute graduate Miriam Goldstein was chief scientist on
a similar expedition to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2009.
According to her research, there has been a 100-fold increase in
plastic garbage in the last 40 years, most of it broken down into
tiny crumbs to form a concentrated soup.
The particles are so small and profuse that they can't be dredged
out. "You need a net with very fine mesh and then you're
catching baby fish, baby squid -- everything," Goldstein says.
"For every gram of plastic you're taking out, you probably take
out more or less the equivalent of sea life."
We don't necessarily want an ocean stuffed with barnacles
Miriam
Goldstein, scientist
Scientists are worried that the marine organisms that adapt to the
plastic could displace existing species. Goldstein said this was a
major concern, as organisms that grow on hard surfaces tend to
monopolize already scarce food, to the detriment of other species.
"Things that can grow on the plastic are kind of weedy and
low diversity -- a parallel of the things that grow on the sides of
docks," she says. "We don't necessarily want an ocean
stuffed with barnacles."
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Eriksen says the mood on the Sea Dragon has been upbeat, with crew
members playing a ukulele and doing yoga, "but the sobering
reality is that we're trawling through a synthetic soup."
Also on board is Valerie Lecoeur, founder of a company that makes
eco-friendly baby and children's products, including biodegradable
beach toys made from corn, and Michael Brown from Packaging 2.0, a
packaging consultancy.
Eriksen says they have been discussing the concept of "extended
producer responsibility".
"As the manufacturer of any good in the world today, you
really can't make your product without a plan for its entire use,
because you could eventually have 7 billion customers buy your
product," he said.
"If one little button has no plan, the world now has a
mountain of buttons to deal with. There is no room for waste, as a
concept or a place -- there's just no place to put it anymore. That's
the reality we need to face. We've got this plastic everywhere."
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