Trash From Japan Floating Towards West Coast

[Allabord4Jah]

Floating island of rubbish dubbed the 'toxic monster' heads towards the US

The 'toxic monster' is coming! Texas-sized floating island containing one million tonnes of junk from Japan tsunami drifting towards US

The most concentrated stretch of rubbish- dubbed the 'toxic monster' - is currently sitting between Hawaii and California

 

An enormous floating island of debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami is drifting towards the coast of America, bringing with it over one million tonnes of junk that would cover an area the size of Texas.

 

The most concentrated stretch – dubbed the “toxic monster” by Fox News - is currently around 1,700 miles off the coast, sitting between Hawaii and California, but several million tonnes of additional debris remains scattered across the Pacific.

 

If the rubbish were to continue to fuse, the combined area of the floating junkyard would be greater than that of the United States, and could theoretically weigh up to five million tonnes.

 

Among the numerous items consumed by the trash island are boats, houses, electrical appliances and consumer products – all dragged away from the coast of northern Japan in the aftermath of March 2011’s devastating tsunami.

The latest statistics come from a report last week by the US Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  The NOAA commissioned the report in an effort to predict exactly when and where the giant floating junkyard would make landfall.

 

The results suggest the movement of the debris remains wildly unpredictable,  with experts forecasting the bulk of the rubbish could wash-up anywhere between Alaska and Hawaii at any point in the next few years.

Some of the debris may have already crossed the Atlantic, however, with reports of Japanese fishing vessels washing up on the shores of Canada as long ago as winter 2011. If that proves to be the case, the levels of toxic junk already littering US beaches is likely to be high.

 

The Japanese Ministry of Environment estimates around five million tonnes of rubbish left the coast of Japan in the aftermath of the tsunami, but says it believes only 30% floated out into the wider Pacific. The rest, the Ministry claims, sunk to the ocean floor around Japan.

 

(from the Independent News)

Edited November 6, 2013 by allabord4jah

[bagwell1987]

Driving home I heard this report from NOAA, even though this topic is from February it's still valid information as NOAA reported just this mornig. Interesting.

 

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-big-great-pacific-garbage-patch-science-vs-myth.html

 

 

 

How Big Is the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"? Science vs. Myth

The remains of dead baby albatrosses reveal the far-reaches of plastic pollution on Midway Atoll, 2000 miles from any mainland. Credit: Chris Jordan, from his series "Midway: Message from the Gyre." Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

UPDATED FEBRUARY 7, 2013 -- While everything may be bigger in Texas, some reports about the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" would lead you to believe that this marine mass of plastic is bigger than Texas—maybe twice as big as the Lone Star State, or even twice as big as the continental U.S.

For NOAA, a national science agency, separating science from science fiction about the Pacific garbage patch (and other "garbage patches") is important when answering people's questions about what it is and how we should deal with the problem.

(For the record, no scientifically sound estimates exist for the size or mass of these garbage patches.)

The NOAA Marine Debris Program's Carey Morishige takes down two myths floating around with the rest of the debris about the garbage patches in a recent post on the Marine Debris Blog:

1. There is no "garbage patch," a name which conjures images of a floating landfill in the middle of the ocean, with miles of bobbing plastic bottles and rogue yogurt cups. Morishige explains this misnomer:

While it's true that these areas have a higher concentration of plastic than other parts of the ocean, much of the debris found in these areas are small bits of plastic (microplastics) that are suspended throughout the water column. A comparison I like to use is that the debris is more like flecks of pepper floating throughout a bowl of soup, rather than a skim of fat that accumulates (or sits) on the surface.

She's not downplaying the significance of microplastics. They are nearly ubiquitous today—degrading into tiny bits from a range of larger plastic items and now turning up in everything from face scrubs to fleece jackets—and their impacts on marine life mostly remain a big unknown.

Marine debris accumulation locations in the North Pacific Ocean. (NOAA Marine Debris Program)

2. There are many "garbage patches," and by that, we mean that trash congregates to various degrees in numerous parts of the Pacific and the rest of the ocean. These natural gathering points appear where rotating currents, winds, and other ocean features converge to accumulate marine debris, as well as plankton, seaweed, and other sea life. (Find out more about these "convergence zones" in the ocean and a NOAA study of the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone [PDF].)

Any way you look at these "peppery soups" of plastic in the Pacific, none of the debris should be there. The NOAA Marine Debris website and blog have lots of great information and references if you want to learn more about the garbage patch issue.