Evidence shows that plastic is still consistently going out into the ocean but it is a wonder why we don’t see an increase in the regions where researchers are collecting. When I picture the garbage patch I picture large, visible pieces of plastic bobbing up and down in the water. But, the plastics have broken down into such small pieces, or the bacteria and organisms growing on the pieces cause them to sink. Some of the trash could escape to other areas of the ocean on wayward currents. 
I’m sure a lot of people are wondering why we just don’t go out there and drag huge nets around till we collect all the trash. Picture that happening in a soup of trash that is possibly twice the size of the continental United States. As well, most of the plastic is in such small pieces that it would bypass the nets anyway. Trying to clean up the Pacific gyre would bankrupt any country and kill wildlife in the nets as it went.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is aggressively using satellites to identify and remove “ghost nets,” abandoned plastic fishing gear that never stops killing. (A single net recently hauled up off the Florida coast contained more than 1,000 dead fish, sharks, and one loggerheaded turtle.)
When it comes to capturing and cleaning up the plastic, there is no practical method to capture the liquid graveyard of waste. Most experts agree that cleaning up the tiny pieces already swirling in ocean currents thousands of miles from land is impossible. That being said, the number one objective we face is how to capture it all. This is where technology is uncertain. Moore, the man who discovered the mess in 1997, didn’t put the situation lightly. “All this BS about going out there and scooping this stuff up--you can’t scoop this stuff up! No way in hell you’re going to get that out of there--it’s just not feasible! The idea that there is this convergence zone’ in the gyre, and the plastic waste all goes there, it’s coming from other places and screwing up those parts of the ocean too. No matter where you are, there’s no getting over it, no getting away from it, it’s a plastic ocean now.” (Doucette, 2009)Cleaning up the garbage patch does indeed appear to be impractical considering the man power, funding, technology, and later disposal methods it would take to make it possible. It would also further endanger innocent sea life. Twenty five percent of our planet is a toilet that never flushes and the only way we can stop it is through prevention.
Doucette, K. (2009, October 29). An ocean of plastic. Rolling Stone, (1090), 54-57.
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