The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

[cssdengr]

Has anyone actually encountered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? If so, do you have any pictures?

I got tired of going through all the articles that come up in a Google search - a few drawings, lots of pics of bird skeletons full of bottle caps but no photo evidence of the GPGP.

[camaraderie]

Here's a VIDEO preview on the gyre/plastic.
Algalita Marine Research Foundation - Videos

One thing that I do think is of interest is that it seems that ALL of the data and news stories on this phenomema come from ONE source....and the source is actively soliciting funds. No doubt, the photos/videos show a real problem...but I would be wary about accepting at face value statements like "100 million tons of plastic trash" or a "continent sized sea of plastic soup" until they can be verified by others.

[cssdengr]

Thanks - I had noticed that all the available articles shared alot of info, even wording. Much of it misleading - "there's a garbage dump the size of Texas floating out there but you can't see it on satellite photos..."

[ianhlnd]

It's Bullsh*t,

Where's the acres of floating condums that are supposed to be there? Like I've posted before, I've brought boats back from Tahithi and other Pacific Islands, give me a lat and long and I'll look for it, so far, haven't found it.

The only people who believe in this BS are liberal hippy yuppie gullible college students who don't know sh*t about the real world and believe everything they're told without firsthand experience.

Bring up it again, and I'll tell you how I really feel about this subject, HEY, I'm a photographer, I'd make a million bucks with a photo essay of the area or actual proof that it exists, it ain't there. Geraldo opened Capone's safe and made millions even though nothing was in the safe. Give me a break!

Why do I think Algore is behind this hoax?

[sailaway21]

Algalita continually refers to plastic nurdles being harmful to marine life. You'll have to read quite some distance or go elsewhere to discover that nurdles are pre-production plastic granules and not the break-down of manufactured plastics.

This article on the bum rap plastics have gotten, particularly in the marine environemnt may be of interest. Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain - Times Online

I'd also tentatively advance the notion that most of these people have never been offshore enough to qualify as "off soundings". Yet they speak for the whole ocean.

[wfraser]

It's pretty obvious that those who doubt that the oceans are filling up with plastic haven't sailed in oceans full of plastic. I have sailed extensively throughout Asia and Northern Asia and not an hour goes by when one doesn't come across a plastic bag, or plastic bottles, or jerry cans, or traffic cones, or refrigerator interiors, or printer housings, or golf balls. I've had the misfortune of sailing alongside miles-long streams of garbage as thick with trash as any dump.

The fact that much of it ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Dump comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the currents of the North Pacific.

Perhaps those of you in the US can thank punitive US plastic and waste dumping policies, and a people that by and large support them, for the fact you don't SEE the problem. But just because YOU don't see the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[2Gringos]

Originally Posted by wfraser

It's pretty obvious that those who doubt that the oceans are filling up with plastic haven't sailed in oceans full of plastic. I have sailed extensively throughout Asia and Northern Asia and not an hour goes by when one doesn't come across a plastic bag, or plastic bottles, or jerry cans, or traffic cones, or refrigerator interiors, or printer housings, or golf balls. I've had the misfortune of sailing alongside miles-long streams of garbage as thick with trash as any dump.

The fact that much of it ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Dump comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the currents of the North Pacific.

Perhaps those of you in the US can thank punitive US plastic and waste dumping policies, and a people that by and large support them, for the fact you don't SEE the problem. But just because YOU don't see the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Let me get this straight..... fraser, you are claiming that golf balls float in the ocean?

That's such total ********, you just shot your whole argument in the foot. Why do you make up lies like that when talking to a bunch of people here who know better?

Tell you what, go throw a golf ball into the ocean and then take a photo and post it here of a golf ball floating. Go ahead. I dare you.

And you completely validated Ianhind's post. You don't know what you are talking about.

[bubb2]

As a kid I used to make my spending money retrieving Golf Balls from the ponds of the local golf course. I got a buck a basket. But, those were fresh water ponds. Golf balls sink like rocks in fresh water. Maybe wfraser is on to something, golf balls float in salt water. I think not!

[2Gringos]

With a lie that obvious, how can you believe anything else he tells you?

[bubb2]

Originally Posted by 2Gringos

With a lie that obvious, how can you believe anything else he tells you?

Next, He is going to tell us the reason that you don't see cranberries in the open ocean is because they sink!