Garbage Patches
Genius Hour Project
Garbage Patches
After years of dumping trash into our oceans, we have realized that the underwater ecosystems have been living in harsh conditions. This unwanted trash eventually builds up into what we call ¨garbage patches¨. Garbage patches are created when under water currents all push the trash into one area.
How Are We Affected?
You are probably asking yourself why you care about the trash... What you don´t know is how much it is actually impacting you.
The chemicals in the garbage are very dangerous (this is why you don´t see people walking around with trash in their mouth). After sitting in the water for a while, the chemicals are released all throughout our water. We definitely don´t want this in our water bottles.
Additionally, the trash is often mistaken as a jelly fish or a fish. When another animal eats the trash, it kills them. If the animal does not eventually die, another animal could eat the animal that consumed this trash (moving the trash up the food chain). Eventually, the trash then could end up on our dinner plate.
This image shows the major ocean currents that carry the unwanted trash through our oceans.
Unnecessary trash has built up in large patches. This view is from underneath the rim of a garbage patch.
These large ¨buildups¨ block the migration routes for many animals. This image shows a seal being rescued from the trash.
What You Can Do
An average person creates 4.3 pounds of trash everyday! This means one person can produce up to 1569.5 pounds of trash every year! By reducing the amount of waste, we can surely cut down on the size of garbage patches. Some ways to help out are using refillable water bottles, purchasing a bag to carry groceries instead of using plastic bags, and even buying products that use less packaging. These are just easy things that everyone can do to help minimize the trash going into our oceans.