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Most debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the surface, evading detection by aircraft or satellite. Instead, the size of the patch is determined by sampling. The estimated size of the garbage patch is 1,600,000 square kilometres (620,000 sq mi) (about twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France). [52]
By using data on surface plastic concentration (pieces of plastic per km 2) from 1972 to 1985 (n=60) and 2002–2012 (n=457) within the same plastic accumulation zone, the study found the mean plastic concentration increase between the two sets of data, including a 10-fold increase of 18,160 to 189,800 pieces of plastic per km 2.
Its large size and distance from shore has caused the NPSG to be poorly sampled and thus poorly understood. [2] The main ocean currents involved with the North Pacific Gyre. The life processes in open-ocean ecosystems are a sink for the atmosphere’s increasing CO 2. Gyres make up a large proportion, approximately 75%, of what we refer to as ...
The fleet collected a total of 1.2 million plastic samples, while the aerial sensors scanned more than 300 kilometers of ocean surface. The team found that plastic pollution levels within the GPGP ...
STAUNTON — Earth Day Staunton’s theme of 2024, “STOP the Plastic Tidal Wave!,” aims to raise awareness about the role of plastic in ocean pollution, human health and climate change ...
The South Pacific garbage patch is an area of ocean with increased levels of marine debris and plastic particle pollution, within the ocean's pelagic zone. This area is in the South Pacific Gyre , which itself spans from waters east of Australia to the South American continent, as far north as the Equator , and south until reaching the ...
The degradation of plastics in the ocean also leads to a rise in the level of toxics in the area. [2] The garbage patch was confirmed in mid-2017, and has been compared to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch's state in 2007, making the former ten years younger. The South Pacific garbage patch is not visible on satellites, and is not a landmass.
The United States National Academy of Sciences estimated in 2022 that the worldwide entry of plastic into the ocean was 8 million metric tons of plastic per year. [63] A 2021 study by The Ocean Cleanup estimated that rivers convey between 0.8 and 2.7 million metric tons of plastic into the ocean, and ranked these river's countries. The top ten ...