Crew Accounts: 2002 Central Pacific Research Voyage
Pacific
Soup
MIKE ROWINSKY
Marine Biologist/ Biology Teacher
ORV Alguita Crewmember 2002
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Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean a soup is being made. This soup is eaten by millions of organisms everyday. This soup is neither advantageous to the organisms eating it nor is it nutritious. The organisms go about there lives slowly eating themselves to death on a man-made soup of seawater and plastic. This soup also entangles thousands more organisms. They struggle along dragging whatever it is they find themselves in until, overcome by starvation and exhaustion they die.
The soup is there, we’ve seen it, and we’ve secured samples of it. Now lets call this soup exactly what it is…A GREAT PLAGUE OF THE PACIFIC. Not the black plague but one of bits of yellow, white, blue, and green plastic fragments floating on the surface and within the intermediate layer. This plague is killing organisms everyday. Some organisms use the larger pieces of flotsam as substrate. This false substrate soon grows heavy with fouling and sinks. Thus killing the attached organisms. The organisms slough off, the plastic regains its buoyancy, floats to the surface and the deadly cycle begins again. Repeating for an indeterminable amount of time.
Other problems presented by the vast quantities of trash adrift in the North
Pacific gyre are:
- It is just waiting for the right conditions to allow it to wash up on the beaches surrounding the Pacific Basin. Causing unknown damage to coastal ecosystems, and businesses that thrive on the beach’s health.
- Other, larger pieces of trash are lurking out there just waiting for a vessel to slam into them in the night. Again, possibly causing unknown quantities of damage to already strained environments and putting sailors at increased risk.
There is no longer a question as to whether the “Garbage Patch” exists. However, many questions demand answers.
- How big is the “Garbage Patch” problem?
- How much trash is really out there?
- Is the amount of trash increasing or decreasing?
- What can be done to prevent future growth of the “Garbage Patch”?
- Who’s responsible for the current situation in the Pacific Gyre?
- What can be done to cure our oceans?
- Who’s going to pay for that cure?
As a marine biologist I am appalled at the condition of the Pacific Gyre. It saddens me that for so many years this growing problem has not been addressed in the common areas of our media. Too many people who need to know about what is happening to the Earth sit in their homes oblivious to the problem(s) facing our oceans and our planet.
As a biology teacher I am excited to return to my classroom and share my experiences with my students. I am going to present this puzzle that has been shared with me to my classes in the hope that maybe the uninhibited mind of a child holds the key to our ocean’s success.
Posted: 8/30/02