Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
an island,
it has no defined boundary, only a general area. So let's just call it big, and be
done with it.
A more appropriate analogy would be that of an ecosystem.
System
is the key here, im-
plying something much more complex than a simple floating object. From tuna-size hunks
of Styrofoam and discarded fishing nets that lurk like massive jellyfish, down to micro-
scopic pellets that hang in the water like artificial plankton, it is a vast, plastic simulacrum
of the living ocean that is its host. And precisely because it is so complex, and so far from
land, its nature is poorly understood.
Nobody can say for sure exactly where all the stuff comes from, but there is broad agree-
ment that its sources are disproportionately land-based. A surprising amount of trash man-
ages to avoid the landfill, and when it does, it often makes its way to the sea, whether by
way of storm drains, rivers, or other avenues.
Since plastic objects don't degrade easily, if ever, they have plenty of time to work their
way out from land and find the ocean's currents. A plastic bottle taken by the currents off
San Francisco will travel south as it heads out into the Pacific, passing through the latitudes
of Mexico and even Guatemala before heading west in earnest, caught by the North Pa-
cific Subtropical Gyre. This vast counterclockwise vortex will take the bottle clear across
to the Philippines before shooting it north toward Taiwan, close by Japan, and then spitting
it back past Alaska, toward the rest of North America.
Around and around the Gyre goes, and the plastic bottles and hard hats of the North Pa-
cific go with it, we assume, until at last they drift into the becalmed zones spinning at the
eastern and western ends of this oceanic conveyor belt. These are the Eastern and Western
Garbage Patches. (The Eastern gets all the attention because it's closer to the United States
and was the first to be discovered.) Here, our plastic bottle finds its friends: all the other
bits and pieces of plastic that have made it into the ocean in the previous who-knows-how-
long. And here they wait, year upon year, breaking into fragments from the action of the
waves, and strangling hapless turtles, choking overzealous albatross that mistake plastic for
food, and being eaten by fish.
Eventually, the scientists and the activists and the adventurers come. Whatever part of
our plastic history that floats, the Garbage Patch is the place for them to find it: our bottles,
our plastic tarps, our popped bubble wrap, the tiny plastic “scrubbing beads” of our exfoli-
ating face soap. It's all here for the hunting.
Or so I hoped. But without a single cruise line running through, how was I to know for
sure? Which brings us to another interesting thing about the Garbage Patch: hardly anyone
has actually seen it. It takes serious oceangoing chops to get out there. And there's almost
no reason anyone with a boat would bother. Most people with yachts and things are more
