More plastic than plankton

At the heart of the oceans, areas as big as France, maybe more, are covered in garbage.

The most famous of these is the Great Garbage Patch, discovered in the late 1990s in the North Pacific Ocean between the U.S.A. and Asia. But it seems that another seven similar patches may exist, according to Seattle oceanographer Curtis Eb­bes­meyer, one of the first scientists to take interest in the strange routes of plastic trash in the sea. 

In his new book, Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science, Ebbesmeyer explains his “science of floating objects,” or “flotsametrics.”

By observing trash on beaches, such as Nikes or rubber ducks, he identified several circular currents, or gyres, which, like whirlpools, bring together all the plastic and other solid garbage that ends up in the seas around the world.

Eb­besmeyer says the patches of debris may cover a surface “equivalent to several times the United States.”

However, the garbage patches are still unrecognized and neglected because they are basically difficult to see.

“From a boat, you start seeing everyday objects like toothbrushes and plastic bags on the outskirts of the vortex,” explains François Chartier, director of the oceans campaign at Greenpeace France, the organization that revealed the existence of the Great Gar­bage Patch to the media.


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“When you approach the centre of the patch, the trash is thicker and some birds have actually started nesting on it.”

But from the sky, even from satellites, there is “nothing to be seen,” says Ebbesmeyer. “It’s like tracking a ghost!”

Invisible plastic? Not really. The fact is that most of the pieces are quite see-through, like plastic bags. Others are fractions of bigger pieces of plastic that have disintegrated into bits as small as plankton.

“In the middle of the patch, there is six times more plastic than plankton,” Ebbesmeyer says.

This accumulation of plastic in the oceans is a serious menace for the environment and for human health.

“Dolphins suffocate on plastic bags, birds can die of hunger because their stomach is so full of undigested plastic that they can no longer eat,” says Chartier.

But plastic also contains toxins (PCBs, heavy metals) that are harmful to humans and that are assimilated by plankton and other fish, which end up in the ocean’s food chain, and, consequently, in your seafood chowder.