Ocean Gyres & Garbage Patches

Plastic is not absorbed by the ocean. Plastic which ends up there is fragmented into smaller and smaller bits. These bits never go away, but get caught up into ocean gyres, causing devastating impact on wildlife.

A "gyre" is a slow moving ocean current which forms into a massive whirlpool. There are five enormous ocean gyres which fill our oceans today, as well as smaller gyres across all our oceans. The sizes of these gyres fluctuate. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch ranges from the size of Texas to and area larger than the continental United States. The fragmented plastic which gets caught up in the gyres becomes a soup of tiny plastic pieces which pollute our oceans. It is hard to quantify the size of the garbage patches, because while the center of the gyres can have up to 40 times the amount of plastic than it does plankton, much of the surface area is thinly spread over vast distances.

As ocean wildlife try to forage for food in the soup of plastic bits which make up the ocean gyres, they end up eating a lot of plastic. Their stomachs cannot digest the plastic, yet they feel like they have eaten a full meal. Since they are not able to absorb nourishment from plastic, they starve to death. As the plastic moves through their digestive track, it often blocks their system, which can also kill them. The United Nations Environmental Programme estimates that over one million seabirds and 100,000 whales, seals, fish and turtles die by ingesting plastic every year. Plastic bags, in particular, are confused with squid by whales, and thought to be jellyfish by sea turtles.

How does this problem impact us directly? Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs) are toxins like PCBs, DDT and other chemicals used in pesticides. Plastic waste has been found to absorb these POPs as they are washed through our watersheds. They carry the pollution to the ocean, adding a large dose of toxic chemicals to the already deadly plastic soup gathered in the ocean gyres. Scientists are beginning to question whether these toxins are working their way up through the food chain, becoming more concentrated in the animals as they near the top of the chain...making it very dangerous for those at the top of the food chain (read: humans)

There is no known way to clean up these enormous patches of plastic pollution. One reason it is so difficult is that we don't know a way to remove the "soup" of small plastic bits without removing the plankton which is floating there as well. Why is plankton important? It is the base of our food chain. It produces half of the oxygen we breathe, as well as capturing half the carbon in the atmosphere. There are areas in the ocean gyres which have 40 times the amount of plastic as it does plankton. The more plastic fills our world, the less room there is for other forms of life. Biodiversity increases the chance of survival for all organisms, including humans.

Our best bet in confronting this problem is to stop it at its source. As individuals, we have the power to make choices that will have a direct impact this enormous problem. If we choose to cut down or avoid single use plastics in our day to day lives, we can have a profound influence on building a solution.

Ultimately, my paintings about plastic will be used as an educational tool with the aim of reducing our consumption of single use plastics.

UN Environment Programme
The Plastic Flow: From Waste to Waves

Art from Detritus
Turtles swimming in a Plastic Ocean series included in the Art from Detritus exhibit
Williamsburg Art & Historical Center
135 Broadway - Brooklyn NY
April 24th - May 29th 2011

Learn more through organizations who are working to reduce the problem of plastic in our oceans:
The Plastic Pollution Coalition
The 5 Gyres Project
Ocean Conservancy