Sunday, August 27, 2006

The Largest Trash-heap in the World

How many of you knew about the "island" of garbage twice the size of Texas that is currently floating in the Pacific ocean about halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii? Am I the only one who didn't know about this?

Oceans of Garbage

There is also a link to a five-part LA Times story about the oceans. Chilling.

6 comments:

ashlupa said...

I think I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

kenllama said...

this is news to me too.
i wonder, though, if there might not be some hidden benefit here. this isn't a "dump" in the strictest sense -- we aren't deliberately dumping materials into that spot. rather, ocean currents are picking up lots of the waste that's floating freely around and they are bringing lots of it to this spot. could it be that the concentration of trash in this one place is reducing the overall load on the rest of the ocean? do other marine ecologies benefit from this waste removal system?

swansister said...

I Had not heard of this.
This is quite disturbing to me.
How can giant floating island of human debris be ignored?
I'm astounded.
Swan

satyresque said...

That is so sad

symwyse said...

was that a sea turtle I saw trapped in the net?
I concur with , it is interesting that all of this garbage is clustered together in one place...

faerynymph said...

Unfortunately, yes, that was a sea turtle.