A 2nd garbage patch: Plastic soup seen in Atlantic

[karl_1052]

How come there are never ariel photos of these floating garbage patches?

[Rider]

After seeing what gets thrown overboard form aircraft carriers on deployment I'm not surprised there isn't more of these. They try to keep plastic out and they burn the paper but I'd imagine quite a bit of non biodegradable material gets dumped.

[AquaPython]

Originally Posted by karl_1052

How come there are never ariel photos of these floating garbage patches?

because you basically cant see it.

its mostly made up of granules and small particles of plastic mixed into the first three feet of the surface water. unless you run a strainer through it, you dont see much at all.

[derf]

Originally Posted by karl_1052

How come there are never ariel photos of these floating garbage patches?

Because its not actually a patch of garbage, its a couple of hundred square miles across of tiny fine particles and a bottle or garbage bag floating there every few miles or so. The pictures of garbage floating in clumps is media hype because the shit is so scattered that you really dont see it unless you collect a bunch of it.

Pictures like this get all the media attention because it looks big and disgusting, but what this picture doesnt say is that this is 1 big piece of trash lost from a ship, not a whole patch




What you should really notice is the garbage in the background...