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A garbage patch is a gyre of marine debris particles caused by the effects of ocean currents and increasing plastic pollution by human populations. These human-caused collections of plastic and other debris are responsible for ecosystem and environmental problems that affect marine life, contaminate oceans with toxic chemicals, and contribute ...
Map of ocean currents circa 1943 This photo demonstrates the dispersal of plastic fragments of various sizes Visualization of the flow pattern of ocean pollutants. 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.
While marine pollution can be obvious, as with the marine debris shown above, it is often the pollutants that cannot be seen that cause most harm.. Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residential waste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch formed gradually as a result of ocean or marine pollution gathered by ocean currents. [39] It occupies a relatively stationary region of the North Pacific Ocean bounded by the North Pacific Gyre in the horse latitudes. The gyre's rotational pattern draws in waste material from across the North Pacific ...
The patch is located from 22°N to 38°N and its western and eastern boundaries are unclear. [5] The debris zone shifts by as much as 1,600 km (1,000 mi) north and south seasonally, and drifts even farther south during the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, according to the NOAA. [3]
Human activities affect marine life and marine habitats through overfishing, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species, ocean pollution, ocean acidification and ocean warming. These impact marine ecosystems and food webs and may result in consequences as yet unrecognised for the biodiversity and continuation of marine life forms. [3]
Plastics accounts for 80% of waste dispersed in the marine and coastal environment of the Mediterranean Sea. [24] Recent studies focus on the types of plastics found and primarily on the issue of microplastics, both at a global but also at a regional level, as in the case of the Mediterranean Sea, which was identified as a "target hotspot of the world" due to its amounts of microplastics ...
The Garbage Patch State – Wasteland is an ongoing transmedia, environmental artwork by Maria Cristina Finucci.The project aims to raise awareness about the environmental hazard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch caused by the dispersion of plastic debris in the oceans.