'Even if everyone stopped putting garbage in the ocean today, giant garbage patches would continue to grow for hundreds of years' Floating patches of humanity's garbage have become a permanent feature in the world's oceans and a new discovery in the South Pacific shows that this woeful trend has worsened, not improved, since the phenomenon was first discovered nearly two decades ago. As new research by the 5 Gyres Institute shows, the existenc ...

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'Even if everyone stopped putting garbage in the ocean today, giant garbage patches would continue to grow for hundreds of years' Floating patches of humanity's garbage have become a permanent feature in the world's oceans and a new discovery in the South Pacific shows that this woeful trend has worsened, not improved, since the phenomenon was first discovered nearly two decades ago. As new research by the 5 Gyres Institute shows, the existence of a new plastic island has been found swirling with junk in ocean currents running near Easter Island in the South Pacific, marking the first documented garbage patch in the Southern Hemisphere. The new study, published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, documents the first evidence of a defined oceanic "garbage patch," an accumulation zone of plastic pollution, floating in the area designated as the South Pacific subtropical gyre.

Authors Bio:

OpedNews volunteer from 2005 to 2013.

Amanda Lang was a wonderful member of the Opednews team, and the first volunteer editor, for a good number of years being a senior editor. She passed away summer 2014.