More than we thought...

(Source: The Ocean Cleanup)

Back in December I evaluated the Ocean Cleanup Project and since then there has been a lot of progress.

The biggest piece of recent news to come from the project is not good news but has provided a better picture of what the Ocean Cleanup Project need to do. In a report released a couple of weeks ago, they announced that the quantity of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) was much greater than previously thought, by 4 times... (i.e. their study found 4x more plastic than a previous study using similar methods).

There are a lot of ways to help people picture the amount of plastic in the GPGP, like the most common comparison - it's 3x the size of France! However for me, the most shocking comparison is this:

There are 250 pieces of plastic for every single person on the planet (and that's just in the GPGP!)

A common misconception about this "floating island of plastic" is that it's an actual island that could be stood on, similar to that portrayed by WWF on April Fools' Day

If it were an island it would probably be much easier to collect, just scoop it all up with a floating garbage truck. Instead, 94% of the plastic is microplastic which is floating in the water column, collected using these fine meshed Manta nets (right). The expedition was a huge undertaking, comprising 30 boats and one Hercules C-130 plane.

(Source: The Ocean Cleanup)

Whilst this study provided a better understanding of the extent of GPGP, it also raised a lot of questions. The smaller microplastics (less than 1mm) were underrepresented in their findings, suggesting perhaps they are biofouling (organisms growing on the surface of the plastic, making it denser) and sinking to the deeper ocean. The other main question arising from this study is:

Where is the rest of it?

Despite the huge amounts of plastic found in the area, having estimated the amount of plastic that enters the oceans, the team expected to find a great deal more. This could be due to the fact that 60% of plastic is less dense than sea water and so floats, whilst the other 40% will quickly sink to the sea floor, completely untraceable. Other reasons could be ingestion by marine life, stranding along coastlines and, as mentioned before, biofouling.

In light of this new research, the team released this informative video:

And if you fancy a slightly more in depth video about the recent findings, watch this: