Feds want to survey, possibly clean up vast garbage pit in Pacific

[XemaSab]

The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area.

But that might not stop the federal government from trying.

Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris - which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas - is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.

"Any attempt to remove that much plastic from the oceans - it boggles the mind," Moore said from Hawaii, where his crew is docked. "There's just too much, and the ocean is just too big."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/30/MNT5T1NER.DTL

[bullimiami]

1. with all the money we spend on destruction couldnt we come up with enough to design

a floating recycling plant. we just have to clean up a little faster than we toss in and eventually it will be done.

[gateley]

2. Check out this video that John Jons posted this morning - it SHOWS the

plastic masses in the ocean.

There is a lame anti-Obama message at the beginning which has nothing to do with the rest of the video - I guess it's just the YouTuber stating his political view.

After seeing that video and reading this snip I thought HOW could they possibly clean that up? Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks that would be impossible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXVw19bP0tw

[fed-up]

3. we have to take responsibility for this mess and QUIT buying plastic (petroleum based) crap!

Reduce, reuse, recycle


when will we ever learn???