I find it odd that if you google the exact words used in the OP, “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, you not only get pictures, diagrams and maps, but you get links to Wikipedia, Science, CNN, Discovery, and the New York Times.
The OP either has a strange idea of what “environmentalist alarmist” websites are, or didn’t really try to find any info at all.
It IS refered to as an island in several of the articles linked to in this thread, including the title of the CNN link in post #15. Note the title in large, bold words “TOXIC: Garbage Island”. (Also note the words garbage.island in the url.)
I am not denying the large problem of ocean pollution.
But to refer to the gyre as a garbage patch is just as misleading as calling it an island, as it is commonly refered to in many articles. This is propaganda for the purpose of influencing people who can never go see the reality for themselves.
The reality is that there is no ‘garbage patch’ in the sense that the general public would understand those words, and to refer to the issue that way is very mis-leading.
I did just this after I read your post, and in addition to Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks and “greatgarbagepatch.org”, hit #4 on Google UK was from the Daily Telegraph, which is one of the UK’s most conservative newspapers. Here’s what it has to say (FTR the photograph of the Hawaiian beach in that article is very like what we used to deal with in Hong Kong.)
On preview: ** ghardester**, you’re arguing against something that has not been mentioned in this thread. Why are you doing it? mitabelli: “it [the garbage patch] is real”. you: “Oh, really, there is a real island of garbage twice the size of Texas floating out in the Pacific? Really? Show me a picture.” C’mon dude.
And yet nobody here seems thusly misled.
What I note is that you’re trying to make two points out of one thing: This article has the words “garbage island” in its title! And look, the URL to the article has those words in it too!
Big whoop. The URL has the title of the article in it.
Yes the OP WAS skeptical. No fricking duh.
But they WERE asking if there WAS something akin to an island, because somebody they knew was claiming THATS what exists.
If some local redneck tells me about a bigfoot he saw and I come here asking about it, it doesnt mean I believe to exist.
Good grief.
The person that inspired the OP to ask in the first place probably was.
So nobody here, yet.
the Atlantic has one too
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100415/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_atlantic_ocean_junk
The article describes the area as a soup of confetti-sized plastic. This is interesting, as I have been to a beach in Curacao which has, in place of sand, a multi-colored mass of plastic confetti, washed in from the sea.
I don’t understand why you found that disheartening. What do you think is wrong with it? Do you think the plastic bottles floating on the surface would somehow contaminate the fish swimming down in the lake?
Not to speak for Surly Chick, but it sounds like the disheartening part is that no one is attempting to clean up the mass of plastic that is covering half the surface area of the lake. Also, if there is a such a large collection of plastic garbage in the lake that was not especially disturbing, then it’s a fair assumption that plastic isn’t the only type of garbage being dumped into that lake.
There’s a Dope Staff report “Why don’t we ever see pictures of the floating island of garbage?”
that addresses this topic directly.
Dated Sept 2009