Environment
The great Pacific garbage patch causes great harm to the environment. The large amounts of trash destroy the ocean surface, pollute the environment because of chemicals and toxins and tangles up and covers large parts of beaches and coasts to which garbage pieces float.
The picture below shows different type of garbage, which was collected by Greenpeace activists. The trash contains plastic bottles, fishing nets, golf balls, plastic bags and a lot of other garbage, which is harmful for the environment and to animals.
10/26/2006
Locations: Hawaii Honolulu Kahuku beach Oahu Islands
To view picture on original website: https://photo.greenpeace.org/image/GP0WAD
It takes a lot of time for all this trash to decompose in the ocean. This causes a lot of harm to the environment due to that all this debris floats around the ocean for a so long. The list below shows how long different types of debris take to decompose:
Milk carton: 1 month
Cardboard box: 2 months
Plastic bag: 10-20 years
Plastic bottle: 450 years
Natural food: 2 months
Foamed buoy: 50 years
Newspaper: 6 months
Plywood: 1-3 years
Disposable diaper: 450 years
Cigarette butt: 1-5 years
Aluminum can: 200 years
Glass bottle: undetermined
Plastic beverage holder: 400 years
Photodegradable beverage holder: 6 months
Tin can: 50 years
Fishing line: 600 years
Styrofoam cup: 50 years
Wool socks: 1-5 months
Cotton shirt: 2-5 months
Paper towel: 3-5 months
When observing the list above one can clearly see that the fishing line, the disposable diaper and the plastic articles such as the plastic bottle and the beverage holder take the longest to decompose.
Seeing as plastic makes up 70 to 90% of the entire garbage patch this is an enormous disaster since it lasts in the oceans for over four centuries. Furthermore, the fishing lines which last for about 600 years and together with the fishing nets make up 10% of the garbage patch cause thousands of animals to suffer and die because of entangling in them.