Captain Charles Moore has spent countless hours collecting plastic samples in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean
Chapter ONE THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH On an August day in 1997 Captain Charles Moore was sailing the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to California through a generally calm weather system called the North Pacific subtropical high By taking this route he hoped to avoid dangerous weather farther south Moore had recently completed a transpacific race and was returning to California As he sailed across the sea he expected calm winds and a glassy surface Instead he noticed a bit of trash He didn’t think much of it until he saw another piece of trash And then he saw even more trash 5
What disturbed Moore most was that he was hundreds of miles from shore This far out the ocean should have been pristine Instead Moore saw bottles bottle caps wrappers fishing nets scraps of film and other bits of floating plastic It seemed unbelievable Moore recounted 1 NORTH PACIFIC SUBTROPICAL HIGH The North Pacific subtropical high is an area of high pressure over the northern part of the Pacific Ocean In high-pressure systems storms and moisture are diverted around the area Dense air sinks and warms leaving areas with weak winds and sluggish ocean currents This part of the ocean was typically avoided by seafarers because it is so calm somewhat of an ocean desert It lies along the same latitudes as some of the world’s great deserts that are similarly affected by high atmospheric pressure In many parts of the world it is common for trash to litter streets sidewalks and parks Even in ports and on beaches litter is not uncommon But for Moore who grew up sailing and swimming in the ocean the deep sea was the one place that had always been free of human detritus That there was debris so far from land in a remote part of the ocean bothered Moore so profoundly that he couldn’t stop thinking about it Looking back at his logbook from the voyage Moore read notes about seeing trash for seven consecutive days In that time his crew had covered more than 1,000 nautical miles 1,850 km Moore had come across an accumulation of debris a garbage patch that had been predicted a decade earlier by scientists 2 It later came to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch WHAT IS THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in the North Pacific Ocean It is a collection of marine debris that is the result of rotating ocean currents between Japan and the United States 6
Most of the plastics and trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will not break down over time 7
