From Oregon State University:
Oceanic “garbage patch” not nearly as big as portrayed in media
CORVALLIS, Ore. – There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the “Great Garbage Patch” between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State University scientist.
Further claims that the oceans are filled with more plastic than plankton, and that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s are equally misleading, pointed out Angelicque “Angel” White, an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State.
“There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists,” White said. “We have data that allow us to make reasonable estimates; we don’t need the hyperbole. Given the observed concentration of plastic in the North Pacific, it is simply inaccurate to state that plastic outweighs plankton, or that we have observed an exponential increase in plastic.”
White has pored over published literature and participated in one of the few expeditions solely aimed at understanding the abundance of plastic debris and the associated impact of plastic on microbial communities. That expedition was part of research funded by the National Science Foundation through C-MORE, the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education.
The studies have shown is that if you look at the actual area of the plastic itself, rather than the entire North Pacific subtropical gyre, the hypothetically “cohesive” plastic patch is actually less than 1 percent of the geographic size of Texas.
“The amount of plastic out there isn’t trivial,” White said. “But using the highest concentrations ever reported by scientists produces a patch that is a small fraction of the state of Texas, not twice the size.”
Another way to look at it, White said, is to compare the amount of plastic found to the amount of water in which it was found. “If we were to filter the surface area of the ocean equivalent to a football field in waters having the highest concentration (of plastic) ever recorded,” she said, “the amount of plastic recovered would not even extend to the 1-inch line.”
Recent research by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that the amount of plastic, at least in the Atlantic Ocean, hasn’t increased since the mid-1980s – despite greater production and consumption of materials made from plastic, she pointed out.
“Are we doing a better job of preventing plastics from getting into the ocean?” White said. “Is more plastic sinking out of the surface waters? Or is it being more efficiently broken down? We just don’t know. But the data on hand simply do not suggest that ‘plastic patches’ have increased in size. This is certainly an unexpected conclusion, but it may in part reflect the high spatial and temporal variability of plastic concentrations in the ocean and the limited number of samples that have been collected.”
The hyperbole about plastic patches saturating the media rankles White, who says such exaggeration can drive a wedge between the public and the scientific community. One recent claim that the garbage patch is as deep as the Golden Gate Bridge is tall is completely unfounded, she said.
“Most plastics either sink or float,” White pointed out. “Plastic isn’t likely to be evenly distributed through the top 100 feet of the water column.”
White says there is growing interest in removing plastic from the ocean, but such efforts will be costly, inefficient, and may have unforeseen consequences. It would be difficult, for example, to “corral” and remove plastic particles from ocean waters without inadvertently removing phytoplankton, zooplankton, and small surface-dwelling aquatic creatures.
“These small organisms are the heartbeat of the ocean,” she said. “They are the foundation of healthy ocean food chains and immensely more abundant than plastic debris.”
The relationship between microbes and plastic is what drew White and her C-MORE colleagues to their analysis in the first place. During a recent expedition, they discovered that photosynthetic microbes were thriving on many plastic particles, in essence confirming that plastic is prime real estate for certain microbes.
White also noted that while plastic may be beneficial to some organisms, it can also be toxic. Specifically, it is well-known that plastic debris can adsorb toxins such as PCB.
“On one hand, these plastics may help remove toxins from the water,” she said. “On the other hand, these same toxin-laden particles may be ingested by fish and seabirds. Plastic clearly does not belong in the ocean.”
Among other findings, which White believes should be part of the public dialogue on ocean trash:
- Calculations show that the amount of energy it would take to remove plastics from the ocean is roughly 250 times the mass of the plastic itself;
- Plastic also covers the ocean floor, particularly offshore of large population centers. A recent survey from the state of California found that 3 percent of the southern California Bight’s ocean floor was covered with plastic – roughly half the amount of ocean floor covered by lost fishing gear in the same location. But little, overall, is known about how much plastic has accumulated at the bottom of the ocean, and how far offshore this debris field extends;
- It is a common misperception that you can see or quantify plastic from space. There are no tropical plastic islands out there and, in fact, most of the plastic isn’t even visible from the deck of a boat;
- There are areas of the ocean largely unpolluted by plastic. A recent trawl White conducted in a remote section of water between Easter Island and Chile pulled in no plastic at all.
There are other issues with plastic, White said, including the possibility that floating debris may act as a vector for introducing invasive species into sensitive habitats.
“If there is a takeaway message, it’s that we should consider it good news that the ‘garbage patch’ doesn’t seem to be as bad as advertised,” White said, “but since it would be prohibitively costly to remove the plastic, we need to focus our efforts on preventing more trash from fouling our oceans in the first place.”
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OT – is it me, or has Morano’s site gone down?
[reply] It’s you. 😉 RT-mod
It’s called a “meme”. The “meme” of the week is that an area twice the size of Texas is completely fouled with plastic. It doesn’t matter if it’s accurate, or even remotely accurate, or in any way plausible. It’s a meme.
Once the meme is out there, it works its way through the brains of people who really should know better and remains there for life. Unless and until the meme is erased or corrected there will now be millions of people with this belief walking around spreading it.
Eventually some enterprising souls (possibly the people who started the meme) will come along with a scheme that will clean up the plastic garbage, they just need funding. Donation envelopes appear in the mail, and people who don’t know the difference between research and laundry detergent will send in their cash.
To the the phrase “some scientists” on the graphic is a solid demonstration that it’s a load of crap. “Some scientists” also believe the ozone layer is shrinking because of CFCs, the planet is warming from CO2, that DDT thins eggshells, heck, if you look hard enough you’ll find “some scientists” that believe pretty much anything. I personally know a Christian paleontologist who believes the planet is 6000 years old.
Well that is good news.
I wonder though, if they are headed out there to look at the plastic anyhow, and have decided that it should be removed, ( seemed questionable in the article) why don’t they get a bigger boat and drop a net and pick some up ? Then it would be gone in no time.
Piers Corbyn is on Alex Jones Infowars now if you are interested.
http://www.infowars.com/
Elizabeth; yes, people who are not well versed in oceanic science and who may have no idea what plankton is will believe something like when a scientist, who IS supposed to be up to speed about things like this, says that there is more plastic than plankton.
“There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists,” White said.
White said, “but since it would be prohibitively costly to remove the plastic, we need to focus our efforts on preventing more trash from fouling our oceans in the first place.”
Wow!!! Somebody gets it!
Hey that’s great news – scientists telling the truth; oh and it’s nice to know the plastic out in the ocean isn’t such a big problem as well.
Pollution is bad, as we all know. But let us not forget the lessons we have learned from the antibiotic field. Bacterium and all sorts of microscopic life have the ability to transform their needs and defenses within 1 or 2 generations.
Thought expirement, as stated above, these microscopic pieces of plastic are now being colonized by these bateria/phytoplankton. Are they using this as an “anchoring” advantage over the other species that have not adapted said theory?
Or have they adapted their nutrient requirements to maybe the use of the hydrocarbons from the plastic itself? Again, gaining unforseen biological advantage over other organisms from another source of high quality energy?
When these “rafts” of life are either digested, or become so laden with biological mass that they sink, can we, as humans, then consider this an energy/carbon sink, that heretofore has not been discovered?
Could the law of unintended consequences actually be working for the greater good of the biosphere, by our inadvernt disposal of this plastic garbage?
And regarding the plastics ability to “soak” up PCB’s and other pollutants. Again, may this actually be advantageous to the biosphere, for as these bits “clean” the ocean waters, could not the colonizing bacterium/algaes be able to develope a system to render these pollutants harmless? We have seen this just recently in the gulf spill, where oil eating bacteria flourished, almost overnight, and, as with Dr. Trenbreth, there were questions about the missing oil, until this biological process was realized.
Have we humans, using our monkey sense, maybe unknowingly, actually conspired to help the biosphere, both in cleaning and reducing (of GH gasses)?
I have always stood by and will to my dieing breath, that humans are part of nature, and as such, all things we do are “nature-all”. We just aren’t privy to the grand plan.
Here’s the thing. Whatever comes out of the environmental movement today, I simply dismiss, or disregard. Which, is actually pretty sad. Fact is, after the fabricated ozone scare of the early 90s (bought hook, line and sinker by this writer, who was a young university student at the time), and the global warming fiasco (which I’m proud to say I’ve NEVER bought into) these people have lost all credibility.
Maybe the Garbage-at-Sea, or Ocean Acidification issues really are a problem. But, like in the Chicken Little story, we’ve no basis to trust those promoting these stories. In fact, we have every reason be skeptical the story is real and, if it is real, if it is as bad as being described.
White sounds surprisingly sane.
I always suspected the size of that great ecological dump was suspect. But as an onlooker I couldn’t know and still can’t.
The most alarming reports seem to concern places where confirmation is very difficult. The temperature trends in Antarctica would be an example.
Glad she could clear that up once and for all, and without even needing to publish. And with the cruise only taking 30 samples, and hardly getting into the trash area, apparently — http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/cmoresuperhicat/superhicat.html
Another shocker. They over-hyped the plastic flotilla. How long will we be forced to suffer this practice of pseudologia fantastica? It isn’t as if we don’t know we’re being lied to. We know it. It isn’t like they don’t know we know they’re lying. They know it. And yet day in and day out this over-hyping mythomania persists. How much did this trash finding expedition cost? Who pays simply to disprove what we all knew was a lie to begin with? We do.
What’s wrong with these people? What’s the next bs story that will cost fortunes to dispel? Wait, let me guess. The earth is running out of water and we should feel guilt every time with take a shower.
Ah good, now I can be proud of my alma mater again – I’ve heard quite a bit of idiocy out of some scientists from OSU.
Holy kershmoly, when did they drag Texas out into the middle of the ocean? Couldn’t NOAA just measure it in football-fields instead?
Did they find CRU’s and Mann’s hard drives and disks?
Awesome, more reason to not care and toss my litter in the street. No problem at all! Just some dumb science hype.
Excuse me now, just need to pour some oil down the storm drain.
“There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists,” White said. “We have data that allow us to make reasonable estimates; we don’t need the hyperbole. Given the observed concentration of plastic in the North Pacific, it is simply inaccurate to state that plastic outweighs plankton, or that we have observed an exponential increase in plastic.”
I say give that man a medal! A scientist who is serious about doing science and keeping it credible and not bowing to the political winds? Wow.
Better yet give him a budget to design and implement a cleanup program. We could station him in Hawaii just so he could be close to the action (I jest on that part but if he wants a lacky there I’ll volunteer).
Thank you Anthony – being pointed to studies like Dr. Angelique White’s is one of the enormous rewards of visiting your site. What a great study!
Gary Pearse says:
January 6, 2011 at 11:44 am
Today (no link) it is reported that the link between the usual children’s innoculations and autism found by a UK researcher are a total hoax and has put millions of children at risk – probably because of activist anti-vaccincation leanings. We had the Korean DNA researcher who cooked his results, the Japanese statistic of having the largest pop of centigenarians shown to be hugely inflated …. and I guess the list will keep going on until the goodwill possessed by scientists has been all used up in a good cause.
————
I heard the current study’s author interviewed on the radio today. Not only did he allow that the author and activists who promoted the vaccine-autism link had ‘blood on their hands’ but he posited that the study that ‘detected’ this linked- based on little more than a dozen pieces of anecdotal evidence – was funded by groups of lawyers hoping to launch class-action lawsuits against the producers of vaccines. That’s about as despicable as the abuse of science can get, but I can see abundant parallels with CAGW alarmist ‘science’. Absolutely makes my blood boil – and I have a son who as full-blown autism.
Congratulations to Professor White for calling it as she sees it, and for deprecating the exaggeration by some scientists of the mass extent of plastics pollution.
However, the euphoric appreciation expressed in most of the responses here fills me with dread. Almost every serious study which has looked at plastics ingestion by seabirds has shown a disturbing and dangerous increase. Like it or not, it is a serious and well-evidenced problem.
One of my main concerns about AGW hype is that it has diverted attention away from more serious – and more evident – environmental problems, such as direct pollution of land, atmosphere and seas. The reaction of people here makes me think that we have already passed the point of no return in terms of credibility. No environmental scientist can publish a warning flag, no matter how well-researched and well-reported, without it being tarred with the same brush as AGW hype.
Apparently I’ve also slipped into an east-London twang. My son ‘has’ full blown autism. He’s doing great, by the way.
Hmmm, how to align this study with one of the original reports:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
The amount of plastic (1″ in a football field) doesn’t gel with the description of no clear spot in 1000 miles.
To James Sexton
Re: water, if you are being sarcastic then I didnt get it, sorry. If you were not then you probably dont come from Australia.
We have already had various govt. or quasi govt. ads on TV telling us to shower less and change the shower heads.
After spending vast amounts of taxpayers money on dams for farming last century the Government in all their wisdom is taking the water back to give to “the environment” and bankrupting farmers on vast slabs on the continent. Goggle something on the Murry Darling Basin Authority (or whatever is their name now). Their current proposal deliberately excluded social/financial costs from their considerations on what to do with water.
R Taylor says:
“Holy kershmoly, when did they drag Texas out into the middle of the ocean? Couldn’t NOAA just measure it in football-fields instead?”
I believe for water the correct unit is “Olympic Swimming Pools”.
In the same way the worries about Methane from the Gulf Oil leak seems to have been overplayed…. Some implications for the methane from the Arctic if it is released… see the news report on the BBC :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12130970
And of course there are the Maldives – also known as the ‘Rubbish Isles’ where Over 750,000 tourists a year arrive from the other side of the globe, in aircraft belching CO2.
The visitors of course spend most of their time and money in expensive hotels and resorts with sandy beaches – where, together with the Maldivians they leave lots of rubbish. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jan/03/maldives-waste-turns-paradise-into-dump