The Garbage Patch

The Garbage PatchBy: Myisha Stafford, Alexis Slutzky, Matt Kragt, Katie

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How the Garbage Patch Effects the Marine lifeOver a million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals and sea turtles are killed each year ingestion of plastics or entanglement.

How the Garbage Patch Effects Sea Turtles

Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. The garbage patch kills over 100,000 turtles each year.

Sea Turtles• They are classified as a reptile• They are 84 inches long and can way up to

1,000 pounds• There are six different species• Their habitat is marine ecosystems, and

circumtropical to temperate regions• They are distributed between all oceans and

the Mediterranean Sea

Sea Turtles Continued• Conservation status is 2 species critically

endangered, 3 endangered, and d1 data deficient

• The reason that the sea turtles are getting caught in the trash is because they live in the area of the patch and they think that is is food so they go up to eat it and they get caught in all the mess and get tangled up and sometime die.

Seabirds and their chicks have been found dead and their stomachs filled with plastic items.Their stomachs have been found to contain bottle tops, lighters, and balloons.

How Garbage Patch Effects the Seabirds

Plastic BottlePlastic has been a

major part of our lives for several decades.

From household storage containers to bottles to wrappers.

Plastic is a way of life.

Throwaway Lifestyle On August 1, 1955, Life

magazine had a two-page article on “Throwaway Living”.

With this picture of a family throwing dozens of disposables into the air, it celebrated products’ ability to “cut down the household chores”

Throwaway Lifestyle Continued Consumers jumped on the idea

of single-use items.This was the start for when ease

and convenience became the two most desirable qualities in product marketing.

Plastic • Every year we make enough plastic film to

shrink-wrap Texas• Americans go through 25 billion plastic bottles

every year

Plastic Recycling Misconceptions• Plastics that go into a curbside recycling bin get recycled. – Not necessarily. Collecting plastic containers at curbside

fosters the belief that, like aluminum and glass, the recovered material is converted into new containers. In fact, none of the recovered plastic containers from Berkeley are being made into containers again but into new secondary products such as textiles, parking lot bumpers, or plastic lumber – all unrecyclable products. This does not reduce the use of virgin materials in plastic packing. “recycled” in this case merely means “collected.” not reprocessed or converted into useful products.

Plastic Recycling Misconceptions

• Curbside collection will reduce the amount of plastic in landfills and the ocean.– Not necessarily. If establishing collection makes plastic packages

seem more environmentally friendly, people may feel comfortable buying more. Curbside plastic collection programs, intended to reduce municipal plastic waste, might backfire if total use rises faster than collection. Since only a fraction of certain types of plastic could realistically be captured by a curbside program, the net impact of initiating curbside collection could be an increase in the amount of plastic in landfills. The Berkeley pilot program showed no reduction of plastic being sent to the landfill in the areas where the curbside collection was in operation. Furthermore, since most plastic reprocessing leads to secondary products that are not themselves recycled, this material is only temporarily diverted form the ocean and landfills.

Some interesting facts-Other names the gyre has been called are “The Asian Trash trail” the “Trash Vortex” or the “Eastern Garbage Patch”.

-The cause of the sea birds and other animals consuming the plastics etc. is because the mistake the items to be their prey.

-The Garbage Patch is containing 7 million tons of trash

-A turtle found Dead in Hawaii had over a thousands pieces of plastic in its stomach and intestines.