North Pacific Gyre

North Pacific Gyre - A trash pile the size of Texas floating in the Ocean

Submitted by

 John Basso, Amadeus Consulting

Environmental problem

1. Drifting garbage blowing into the ocean
2. Cargo and other ships intentionally or unintentionally dumping trash (sometimes new products) into the ocean, seas and rivers
3. Plastic is very durable and doesn't easily biodegrade
4. Lack of government authority to enforce cleanup of sea spills

Description of current situation

Plastic is an engineering marvel - maybe a little too good. Scientists have been tracking large floating masses of garbage, some larger than the size of Texas, in order to understand its negative impact on the environment. These masses are made up of mostly land-based debris but also include products and waste from shipping vessels. The most common form of garbage is plastic - light (which makes is easy to blow into the water in the first place), durable (which makes it last) and toxic. Plastic is killing off many types of wildlife and threatening the future of our oceans.

It is hard to wrap your head around the size of the issue but it is estimated that a single gyre can contain between 5 and 100 million tons of trash (yes there are actually more than one of these things). Gyres can stretch for miles. The North Pacific Gyre is approximately 500 nautical miles in length.

Solutions

1. Recycle
2. Reduce what products are constructed using plastics
3. Increase the types of plastics that can be recycled
4. Create financial benefits for companies willing to recycle hard-to-recycle plastics through government-backed incentives
5. Tax single use plastic goods to discourage its use
6. Create new types of packaging that safely break down under typical conditions such as sunlight
7. Create an international super fund for cleaning up ocean gyres

Environmental benefit

Companies diverting a majority of their office trash via recycling are assisting in insuring materials that form gyres never make it to the ocean and therefore improve the health of the oceans. Overall creation of trash can be reduced by switching to products that can be used over and over again vs. products that can only be used once. If single use products can't be eliminated consider compostable products made from alternative materials such as corn.

Other Benefits

1. Reduced dependency on oil
2. Reduce energy required to produce packaging. Recycled material uses less energy than virgin materials.

Cost and complexities

There is a misconception given a big enough ship one could just locate gyres and simply scoop up the floating waste. In the future that may be possible but there are at least four stumbling blocks that currently exist:

1. The sheer size of the floating mass would require a highly coordinated and sustained effort. Any effort to collect the trash would result in large collateral damage to existing wildlife.
2. The trash material usually doesn't remain in its original form but rather mostly exists as a liquid soup making it hard to collect.
3. Once the material is collected it would have to be transported and processed. It isn't likely that any one country would voluntarily signup to take on such a large volume of trash.
4. Because tracking is difficult and the size of disaster is so large the cost of cleanup has yet to be estimated

Where to Start?

1. Sign up for recycling at your office http://www.ecocycle.org/zws/index.cfm
2. Designate recycling bin locations
3. Purchase recycling bins
4. Distribute recycle bins and hang signs indicating what materials can be recycled
5. Train staff
6. Train 3^rd party cleaning services

Where to purchase products?

CompanyName: Eco-Cycle

Location: 5030 Pearl St. Boulder, CO 80301

Phone: 303-444-6634

About BLAST! 

BLAST! is a network of companies that have participated in and support the training, development and interaction of companies looking for practical ways to make their own difference in support of sustainable business practices. BLAST! is a network of businesses that care about a sustainable partnership with the environment, while facilitating idea generation and excitement. Companies are at all different places across the sustainability spectrum. To request an appointment please e-mail info@blastnetwork.org.

About Amadeus Consulting

Amadeus Consulting (http://AmadeusConsulting.com) is a custom software development company dedicated to creating intelligent technology solutions with successful business results. Amadeus Consulting is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, winner of the Microsoft Office XP Challenge, and has Microsoft Partner Competencies in Custom Software Data Management and Mobility Solutions. For more information, please call us at: 720.564.1231 or go online to http://www.amadeusconsulting.com/ContactUs.aspx

http://www.answers.com/topic/gyre - for how to pronounce