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06/12/2025—A thought-provoking exchange on the future of ocean cleanup efforts unfolded last June 11 during Day 3 of the 32nd Pacific Islands Environmental Training Symposium at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan, with one expert warning that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may now be too ecologically complex to remove without unintended harm.
Bradley Nolan, Waste Management Adviser at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, was asked from the floor about efforts to address the massive plastic accumulation zone in the North Pacific—a swirling gyre of marine debris between California and Hawaii commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Nolan, who presented on regional waste management resources, acknowledged the urgency and complexity of the issue, tying it to global negotiations under way for a plastics treaty.
“Article 9 of the plastics treaty currently under negotiation talks about legacy plastics and cleaning up the marine environment,” he said. “There are a number of technologies trying to scrape up and clean the patch, and it makes sense to do that—but now we’re seeing pushback from some environmental groups.”
According to Nolan, a growing number of scientists and green groups have raised concerns that cleanup efforts could destroy an unintended but now-established ocean ecosystem.
“Because that garbage patch has existed so long, it's created a new marine habitat—a floating ecosystem that didn’t exist before,” Nolan said. “Efforts to clean it up could cause massive bycatch and harm species that have come to depend on it.”
While the “patch” isn’t a solid island of trash, it is a dense concentration of microplastics and floating debris, which accumulate due to oceanic gyres. Roughly 80% of that material, Nolan noted, comes from land-based sources—not ships.
Calling the garbage patch “a significant problem with no simple solution,” Nolan said the issue touches on marine biodiversity, waste transboundary movement, and the production of harmful micro- and nano-plastics.
“This is a complex issue—and complex issues rarely come with easy fixes,” he said, before joking that he wouldn’t put the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency team on the spot for additional comments, having spotted some heads shaking in the back of the room.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch remains a powerful symbol of the global plastics crisis. While innovation in cleanup continues, experts like Nolan stress that prevention—especially at the land-source level—must be prioritized across the Pacific.
The four-day symposium concludes Friday and features workshops on hazardous waste, climate adaptation, and the PFAS contamination crisis facing islands such as Saipan and Guam.
By Mark Rabago
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