| Abstrakt: |
The article explores the impact of plastic on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), the largest floating landfill in the world. The Central Pacific Gyre is the largest uniform ocean realm on the planet. The area has taken on a rather more sinister role as a site for the world's plastic trash. Between 70 and 80 per cent of the debris collecting in the Garbage Patch is post-consumer waste from the land. Particulate pollution in the GPGP is at least as high as 100,000 pieces per square mile. Quite apart from physical implications, the biological impact is enormous. Not only can larger plastic objects entrap, entangle and entwine pelagic wildlife, they also act as floating islands and play a role in the colonisation of potentially poisonous new habitats. |
