You can raise awareness about the garbage patch without having to lie. It's largely made up of microplastics, not discarded fishing gear like what the woman in this picture is standing on
Microplastics make up 94 percent of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch. But that only amounts to eight percent of the total tonnage. As it turns out, of the 79,000 metric tons of plastic in the patch, most of it is abandoned fishing gear—not plastic bottles or packaging drawing headlines today.
A comprehensive new study by Slat’s team of scientists, published in Scientific Reports Thursday, concluded that the 79,000 tons was four to 16 times larger than has been previously estimated for the patch. The study also found that fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets. Scientists estimate that 20 percent of the debris is from the 2011 Japanese tsunami.
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u/seaspirit331 Aug 12 '21
You can raise awareness about the garbage patch without having to lie. It's largely made up of microplastics, not discarded fishing gear like what the woman in this picture is standing on