The Science Behind "Garbage Islands"

By Emily Junaedi, 2027

Published 11/17/2023

Floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, an island growing bigger every day. How is this possible? This is no ordinary island. In fact, it’s not even an island; it’s the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a huge heap of plastic trash and stranded fishing equipment in the ocean. This, unfortunately, is not the only garbage patch in the ocean. The current of the water pushes them farther into the sea, helping it collect more debris and spread trash to other patches.

It only takes a small amount of time for a bottle or a discarded fishing net to find its way to a trash island like the one in the Pacific. As they attach themselves to their new home, its plastic begins to break down. A garbage patch is actually made of the microscopic bits and pieces of plastic waste. The amount of plastic bits and nets in trash islands is heavy enough to partially sink the pile. This, unfortunately, creates another problem. 

Marine mammals swim around areas containing garbage patches and get tangled in the abandoned nets. These mammals usually drown because of the nets. The patch can also block the sunlight and prevent algae and plankton from growing on the seafloor below it. Decreased algae and plankton populations can disturb the marine food chain drastically: animals that depend on algae and plankton for food will quickly decrease in population. Those animals’ predators will also start to die if they have no prey. You know the phrase “There’s plenty of fish in the sea”? Soon, that may not be true.

Since the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is too far from any nation’s shoreline, none of them will take accountability for it or help clean it up. But many international organizations and individual people are helping in any way they can to prevent the “island” from getting bigger. Cleaning up patches is very difficult, though. The pieces of plastic are so small that special nets have to be used to capture the trash. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program approximated that it would take 67 boats a year to clean up less than 1% of the North Pacific Ocean.

Scientists and explorers came to an agreement that restricting the amount of disposable plastics we utilize while growing our use of environmentally friendly resources is the best way to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Together, we can solve this problem, and we can transition from destroying the Earth to saving it.