World's Largest Rubbish Dump

Floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is what scientists call the world's largest rubbish dump. It is a dump of plastics and other trash that is floating in the ocean below the surface. It is an area that is 2 times the size of the continental US! Nearly 1/5 of the rubbish comes from ships and the rest comes from land. This waste is not detectable by satellite since it is slightly below the surface and the plastic nearly translucent.



Charles Moore, an American oceanographer, discovered this patch of trash over a decade ago when he was coming back from a yacht race. He took a short cut and found himself in the "North Pacific gyre" – a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of little wind and extreme high pressure systems. Usually sailors avoid it. Moore woke up to find his boat surrounded by trash. For nearly a week he traveled through this dump in the ocean. This dump contains things such as legos, toothbrushes, kayaks, footballs and carrier bags. It is essentially a dumb of plastics and since plastic these days are so durable, you can find every piece of plastic that was dumped into the ocean for the past 50 years!

The full effect of these things is still unclear on the ecosystems in the ocean. However, according to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. And at this rate, things can only get worse as the "dump" grows larger in size.

So start watching what plastic things you buy and where and how you throw them away!