# Jesus Fuck! More Garbage Than You Can Possibly Fucking Imagine!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 7, 2008, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657 "2008-02-07T07:22:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/1 "2008-02-07T07:22:22Z")
[How does **twice** the goddamn size of the US strike you?](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=512424&in_page_id=1811)
> [@](#):
>
> A rubbish dump twice the size of the United States has been discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean.
>
> The vast expanse of debris, made up of plastic junk including footballs, kayaks, Lego blocks and carrier bags, is kept together by swirling underwater currents.
>
> It stretches from 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.
Shit. I _knew_ it was bad, but I had no idea it was _that_ bad. Ya think we ought to start getting serious about this environment stuff anytime soon?
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/2 "2008-02-07T07:25:19Z")
You’d think that for something this huge and important, there would be an aerial photo of the damn thing in the article.
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### Author:  [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/3 "2008-02-07T07:50:54Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
You’d think that for something this huge and important, there would be an aerial photo of the damn thing in the article.
[/QUOTE]
It says:
[QUOTE=Daily Mail]
Because the rubbish, … is translucent and lies just below the water’s surface it cannot be seen in satellite photographs.
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/4 "2008-02-07T07:54:22Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
You’d think that for something this huge and important, there would be an aerial photo of the damn thing in the article.
[/QUOTE]
From the linked article: " the rubbish, which has been called a “plastic soup” and a “trash vortex”, is translucent and lies just below the water’s surface it cannot be seen in satellite photographs."
Well, two bits of good news: apparently, it is easy to scoop up the rubbish with big nets. It just isn’t done because no-one yet has felt the responsible party to pay for it. And IMHO, getting this cleaned up is right up the UN’s alley.
Anther bit of hopeful musing: while birds and mammals choke on the plastic, I wouldn’t be surprised if the more solid objects have a host of little beasties and plants living in/on them. In the open sea, places for hiding, rooting and orientation are in high demand and a sardine can will do just as well as a coral reef.
The article said one-fifth of the rubbish is caused by ships and oil-rigs just throwing their junk overboard. Does anyone know if waste disposal on ships is now properly regulated?
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/5 "2008-02-07T08:13:53Z")
I just sent the link to my national Green Party, suggesting they could politically score with the issue by demanding that our European Council engaged in some waste reducing and cleanup.
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### Author:  [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/6 "2008-02-07T08:46:38Z")
Hold on. Is there any other link to this? It seems like a hoax. the guy said he found this in 1997
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### Author:  [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/7 "2008-02-07T08:52:51Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking]
Hold on. Is there any other link to this? It seems like a hoax. the guy said he found this in 1997
[/QUOTE]
There’s about half a dozen here:
[Island of Gargabe: for Real?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=445748)
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/8 "2008-02-07T08:54:25Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking]
Hold on. Is there any other link to this? It seems like a hoax. the guy said he found this in 1997
[/QUOTE]
[Apparently](http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23157068-952,00.html) not. Google gave several pages of links to the same story, in different articles. And it ain’t April’s Fools day yet.
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/9 "2008-02-07T09:27:59Z")
Ugh. This actually makes me feel physically nauseated.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Credible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Credible)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/10 "2008-02-07T12:26:00Z")
I read an article on this a few months ago. I think it was on Esquire’s website, but I’m not sure. It claimed the size of the garbage pile as roughly that of Texas. My, how it’s grown.
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### Author:  [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/11 "2008-02-07T13:23:02Z")
I’ve been hearing about this for years. It pops up in the news media occasionally. It’s stuck in an eddy called the Mid-Pacific Gyre, if I recall correctly. It’s unimaginably vast, and we need to do something about it.
It’s hard to imagine why so few people are concerned about this, considering it has been reported in mainstream media in the past. Maybe this time, people will \* HOLY COW, IT’S BRITNEY SPEARS!!!\*
Sailboat
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/12 "2008-02-07T13:45:39Z")
Fuck this is depressing: [fucked-up turtle](http://ourdescent.wordpress.com/2007/05/24/about-that-giant-mass-of-plastic-floating-around-in-the-ocean/); [similarly fucked-up seal](http://zooserv.zoo.latrobe.edu.au/Staff/sdg/images/Seal%20with%20cut%20neck.jpg); [view from under the trash](http://www.helixcharter.net/department_sites/socialscience/honors_geo/student%20work/Period%203%20websites/t3moldewatpol/images/plastic%20ocean%20trash.jpg).
I know for a fact (because I helped found an anti-littering charity) that many cities on the southern Chinese coast, in particular Hong Kong, dump _all_ their landfill waste at sea. Anywhere that real estate is a premium. I think even Japan and Singapore do this. Every single day - barges and barges of the stuff.
We used to find whole swathes of hospital waste washed up on the Hong Kong beaches: colostomy bags, dirty needles, bandages. It is overwhelmingly disgusting.
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### Author:  [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/13 "2008-02-07T13:53:37Z")
We have done this [before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=445748)
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### Author:  [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/14 "2008-02-07T14:00:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> For several years ocean researcher Charles Moore has been investigating a concentration of floating plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre. He has reported concentrations of plastics on the order of 3,340,000 pieces/km² with a mean mass of 5.1kg/km²
Well, let’s see. Today is garbage day in my town, which means I have ohhh, let’s say 10kg of garbage in the driveway, waiting to be picked up. To be generous, let’s assume that at any given moment, there’s an average of about 2kg of garbage on my land.
There are about 100 million households in the United States. Assuming they are similar to mine, that’s about 200 million kilograms of garbage. Over 10 million square kilometers, that’s 20 kg/km^2, or 4 times the concentration cited above. A rubbish dump the size of the United States?
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/15 "2008-02-07T14:23:43Z")
That’s why the water is rising. It’s displacing water, so the garbage from china will cause the ocean to flood the coasts. Being it’s larger than this country, we really should be flooded out already.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/16 "2008-02-07T14:27:05Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84]
There are about 100 million households in the United States. Assuming they are similar to mine, that’s about 200 million kilograms of garbage. Over 10 million square kilometers, that’s 20 kg/km^2, or 4 times the concentration cited above. A rubbish dump the size of the United States?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t get your conclusion.
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### Author:  [@Canadiangirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadiangirl)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/17 "2008-02-07T14:27:59Z")
Check out the website garbage revolution…there’s a couple pretty neat experiments and they are promoting less garbage and sending the garbage back to companies who overpackage.
We throw very little garbage…a couple of small shopping bags every two weeks. Otherwise, it’s compost, recycle.
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### Author:  [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/18 "2008-02-07T14:31:51Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm]
I don’t get your conclusion.
[/QUOTE]
The point is that when somebody refers to a “floating rubbish dump,” it connotes a much much denser accumulation of garbage than apparently exists in reality. Presumably, that’s why somebody asked for an aerial photo of the thing. Because they expected to see a picture of a massive island of garbage.
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### Author:  [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/19 "2008-02-07T14:32:53Z")
[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
That’s why the water is rising. It’s displacing water, so the garbage from china will cause the ocean to flood the coasts. Being it’s larger than this country, we really should be flooded out already.
[/QUOTE]
And if that doesn’t work, the Chinese will all jump up and down at the same time, causing a massive tsunami that engulfs the U.S.
😉
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-fuck-more-garbage-than-you-can-possibly-fucking-imagine/436657/20 "2008-02-07T14:36:32Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84]
The point is that when somebody refers to a “floating rubbish dump,” it connotes a much much denser accumulation of garbage than apparently exists in reality. Presumably, that’s why somebody asked for an aerial photo of the thing. Because they expected to see a picture of a massive island of garbage.
[/QUOTE]
As had been clarified earlier in the thread (“plastic soup”). Hence my confusion.
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