The Pacific Gyre - My Rant on Plastic

I'm surprised at the amount of people that have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention the Pacific Gyre. Only 1 person ever has known what I ment. So here's my little rant about why plastics are bad (besides containing BPA and other ingredients that are toxic to digest).

The location of the gyre and animals that have ingested the plastic



All the worlds currents meet in the Pacific ocean. Any plastic, rope, bottles, caps floating in the water are sent to this area, through the movement of the currents. Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year of which about 10 percent ends up in the sea. About 20 percent of this is from ships and platforms, the rest from land. 

Some of it breaks down into tiny pellets of plastic, turning the ocean into a pea soup made of cloudy, toxic, indigestable plastic. The rest of the stuff knots itself into a floatilla of garbage.


This plastic goes right through the food chain - from birds that eat lids, turtles mistaking bags for squid, and whales that eat ingest the 'pea soup' pellets while scooping up plankton.





Sad huh. But how is it fixed? Well, I don't know. But my solution is to reduce the amount of plastic I use, so it doesn't find its way into the rubbish stream. I avoid plastic bags and say no to even small things like straws with my drink. I buy toys from second hand shops. I pick up rubbish on the beach.

I do know, that awareness is the best start!