Students spearhead study on Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, a floating mass of plastic trash about twice the size of Texas, is a striking reminder of human effect on the ocean. Located about 1,000 miles off the California coast, the patch is kept in constant swirling motion by ocean currents. When laundry baskets, bottles and other assorted items wash up on shore, they clutter beaches and pose a toxic threat to species such as albatross that mistake bottle caps and nozzles for food.

In a seagoing expedition that began Sunday, students and researchers from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography will attempt to hone in on the scope and effect of the patch, which was the focus of an article in the Los Angeles Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning series on oceans.

During their 20 days at sea, the researchers will attempt to discover what kind of plastic is in the patch, how deep in the water it goes and how big the patch actually is. They also will examine the plastic to determine whether trash may provide a vessel for pollutants and invasive species traveling to places they do not belong.

‘I’m pretty pleased that the students have had the initiative to band together and see if they can get this expedition together,’ said Robert Knox, deputy director for research at Scripps.

Funding for the project came from the University and the Project Kaisei, as well as the National Science Foundation.

-- Amy Littlefield