When looking at a globe, a map of the world, or a satellite picture of earth, two colors which stand out from the others; blue and green - water and land - the dominating oceans and the massive, scattered continents. Water covers more than 70% percent of the earth's surface, with over 97% of it contained within the boundaries of oceans (Universe Today). .
It's indisputable that the survival of our planet relies on the waters and life forms contained in our oceans, rivers and lakes; can be compared to the blood that courses through our veins, delivering necessary oxygen to our bodies; keeping us alive. .
s nearly unthinkable to agonizing to hear that the largest landfill on earth, isn't on land at all, it is in our precious oceans. This landfill is known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch, " "Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, " or the "Pacific Trash Vortex, " and is located lies in a high-pressure area between Hawaii and California. This area is in the middle of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (National Geographic). According to Paula Bock the gyre and collection of plastic and trash works as follows "Huge, rotating currents of air and water created the Garbage Patch. At the Equator, air gets hot, rises and drifts toward the cooler North Pole. Earth's rotation moves the heated air westward; in the north, the cooled air descends and moves eastward, creating a massive clockwise rotation above the Pacific. The swirling air drives an oceanic current, the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. " Old as the ocean itself, the Garbage Patch is a natural phenomenon. For decades, long-lived sea beans, driftwood and other stuff has accumulated there. However it is now home to plastic debris that doesn't biodegrade. . The circular motion of the gyre draws in debris. Debris eventually makes its way into the center of the gyre where, because of the circular motion, the trash and plastic is unable to escape and build up into the patch it is today.
