Garbage Patch - Can We Fix This?

This problem cannot be fixed any more than a sloppy teenager can fix their bedroom. Just like that teenager, we certainly should periodically clean up these floating garbage piles. What is implied but almost never stated in these floating garbage pile reports is that the root cause of these piles is the slow decay rates of most plastics. Plastics that serve a very useful purpose.

Tracking the nominal location of these gyres could be an interesting bit of oceanography. It maybe that these whirls change their location with either an El NIÑO or La NIÑA cycle.

They will continue to grow until people are taught not to use the ocean as their garbage disposals.

Education and industrialization will help, someday.

Penalties for problem polluters might generate some clean-up revenue, but simply caring about our world would do the most good.

I wish it was as simplistic as that but its not. it would be nice to have an enzyme that lived on the bulk of the garbage....especially if its by-product was water...maybe biotech can design a family of bugs that like eating plastic, but who will pay for the tons and tons of enzymes and ship them to where they're needed? its a big problem without an easy or cheap solution.

There are several organizations working on this problem....From controlling sources of waste to cleaning shorelines and ocean and lake clean-up programs....

"The NOAA Marine Debris Program is authorized by Congress to work on marine debris through the Marine Debris Act, signed into law in 2006 and amended in 2012. The Act requires the program to "identify, determine sources of, assess, prevent, reduce, and remove marine debris and address the adverse impacts of marine debris on the economy of the United States, marine environment, and navigation safety.""

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/about-our-program/marine-debris-act

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/General_MDP.pdf

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/

The problem is two fold. First is how to clean up the waterways of existing garbage and second, how to prevent future garbage from getting into the waterways. I'm sure garbage dumping is the result of waste disposal practices of large manufacturers and waste disposal companies, not so much the individual litterer. I think we would need to employ a fleet of "garbage collecting" ships, operating 24/7 to comb the waterways. These ships would collect and incinerate collected garbage. Some garbage would be recyclable and could be transferred to shore for processing into new material. Does anyone know if this is already being done?

I think a lot of this is from the tsunami debris and shipping containers lost in rough seas, and the nets from fishing vessels that comb the oceans...I'm sure there is dumping of waste at sea by just about everybody that's out there....but probably the bulk is from illegal dumping of land based waste....There are also natural sources that probably contribute to the problem like oil that seeps from the ocean floor and volcanic activity forming sludge that binds a lot of waste together....I think there needs to be a coalition of nations that form an international effort, without a consensus the cleanup would be perpetual...but like anything else it will probably take a seminal event to really make things happen....a little scary to think what that might be...

Make a "garbage boom" similar to "oil boom" and surround the patch and take it to shore,sort it out into various components.

To collect what is hidden below the surface,use a very strong net & pull it to shore.

It's the size of TEXAS!

So how could you miss it?

Break it up into smaller ones & collect.

Reminds me of some remarks made in a film, KON-TIKI 1947, about how they came across all this rubbish in the middle of the ocean?

Regards JD.

Why is everything with this site a problem? There are enough ships plying the seas who could simply pick up some of this rubbish and off load it at the next port of call. There any more than enough navy vessels running about coasts who could pick this up and dump it on shore. Get some value out of your tax money and military budgets. Barges, fishing vessels, supertankers, could all pick up some rubbish.

They all use this resource, so why not let them help to look after it at the same time. Do you want to offer them a bespoke service? Sit back, have a cup of coffee, put your feet up and leave it for another to clean up the mess.

Too much talk out of the west and not enough accepting responsibility today. Making wars is profitable, cleaning up the planet for everyone to use? Well another fine talking point. The kids idea is good and a great business venture. He has my support.

In the municipal waste daily collected organic as well as inorganic items are mixed because people throw everything into garbage bin without sorting.

Whether organic or inorganic bring to the shore(uninhibited island),sort it out and recycle.

That's going to be tricky. It's not great loating garbage bags, round with trash, floating like buoys, almost all of it has broken down to pieces the size of coarse sand or smaller.

A small tactical air burst...fry it

According the released study the situation is not reflecting what computer modeling has predicted and is cause for joy. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141211-ocean-plastics-garbage-patches-5-gyres-pollution-environment/?sf6301603=1