Marine Litter

This morning I watched a show on CNBC called Trash Inc. The Secret Life of Garbage.  It reminded me of the great garbage gyre in the pacific ocean.  The show included a piece on plastic washing up on the beaches in Hawaii.  Much of it was small bits of plastic.  It included toothbrushes and bits of plastic with writing and logos in different languages.  

The show also suggested that there were 5 other gyres in the worlds oceans where plastic is collecting.  Does say a lot about the world population's environmental respect for the oceans,  does it

After watching that show, I looked Marine Litter on the United Nations web page. 

http://www.unep.org/regionalseas/marinelitter/about/default.asp

You can read about the UN's mandate regarding marine litter, and about its distribution, sources, effects, and problems.  

Some of the bits of information they state:

• in the Pacific Gyre it was found that there are 6 kilo's of plastic for every kilo of plankton near the surface
• it is estimated that 70% of plastic entering the oceans ends up on the sea bed
• about 50% of the remaining floating plastic ends up on beaches around the world, and the remainder is floating on the surface of the water

This is a link through the UN to an article called  Plastic Debris in the World's Ocean by Greenpeace. 
http://www.unep.org/regionalseas/marinelitter/publications/docs/plastic_ocean_report.pdf

I also came across a blog called "The Plastic Ocean Project" by Bonnie Monteleone.  I created a link on my blog page.