Biggest landfill in the middle of an ocean?

Question

we are trying to save whales from poachers yet we have the biggest garbage disposal site in the middle of pacific ocean.

plastics and other hard to recycle materials float around and get tangled around sea creatures. what can we do?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm

Answer 1

Well it will cost a lot, but we can package the garbage so that it stays in one place until sediment covers it, put it into a fairly deep trench and blast rock down on top of it,

But most of the plastic we are discarding can be converted back,not to usable plastic, but to molecules that will become part of a diesel fuel. (this is in addition to plastic recycling already done. Just as when disposal sites are on land, our first strategy has to be to reduce the volume of material being disposed of.

Nobody dares suggest that we should all reduce the total amount of garbage we are buying, refuse to accept it as packaging. But even short term this has to be the direction we move in.

Answer 2

I also disagree with Speakeasy. This problem is not caused by overpopulation per se, but high consumption. The higher the population of plastics consumers, the bigger the problem. Decreasing the human population is probably a good idea in the long run (before nature does it for us), but it won't help in this situation.

Needless to say the plastic should have never been dumped in the ocean, but I would suggest a large physical clean up operation over many years. It could be netted up on ships and bought back to land. I don't know much about plastic recycling but I'd rather compress it and dump it on land than in the sea. Right now millions of fish and birds are getting poisoned and the chemicals are working their way up the food chain.

In the long term we should just cease to use plastics and other oil products (after we've finished using the ships for the clean up ;p ). Reduce to minimum, reuse until it breaks and can't be repaired, finally recycle it to make something else. If we don't I think we're pretty screwed

Answer 3

Ultimately, it comes down to too many people.  We all produce waste. There are so many of us that we produce monumental amounts of waste, far too much to be absorbed by the natural environment.  We cannot replace our plastics with natural materials because there are not enough renewable natural materials available for the massive consumption.

In addition to the landfill you mentioned, the hormones from women taking 'the pill' are in rivers and oceans and are s******g up the wildlife as well as humans who eat it.

The rational thing to do is reduce the birth rate, especially in third-world countries that are so overpopulated they depend on massive handouts from the US (with far more promised by Obama) to feed their populations.  Bring the human population down to what the natural environment can sustain.  We are intelligent enough to do this when animal populations breed out of control - why can't we do it with humans too?

Answer 4

I disagree with the previous poster: over population is not the problem. The fact that people (especially in well developed countries) are PIGS is the real problem.  

The Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches have been around for years and the story you found is very out-of-date. The patches have grown over the last few years and are now about the size of the continental US.

We all use too much plastic and we are careless about it's disposal. To dispose of plastic more safely try to create larger solid pieces that cannot be broken up easily. For example stuff all non recyclable plastics into a single tough bag to make a ball of at least 1 foot in diameter and tie it up securely. This large lump of trash is less likely to end up in the ocean or to become a threat to sea life because it is too big to eat.

Read my blog on Plastic: http://vicinsea.blogspot.com/2007/09/gre...

Answer 5

encourage and participate in recycling. Consume responsibly, buy recycled products, recycle,.....

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

It's a start. Let's get all excited about it create a buzz get it into pop culture and save the world.