There is no ‘great Pacific garbage patch’
Of all the fabricated narratives about the environment, this one takes the cake. Yes, there is plastic in the oceans, mostly discarded fishing gear, but there is no island of plastic waste twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“A huge, swirling pile of trash in the Pacific Ocean is growing faster than expected and is now three times the size of France. According to a three-year study published in Scientific Reports Friday, the mass known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is about 1.6 million square kilometers in size – up to 16 times bigger than previous estimates. That makes it more than double the size of Texas.” CNN – March 23, 2018.
Because the average person cannot see the middle of the Pacific for themselves sensationalist activists, media, and politicians just make this up. In fact, plastic in the oceans is doing far more good than harm. Allow me to explain this bold assertion.
Plastic is made from several raw materials including oil, coal, natural gas, and wood. Plastics are polymers — long-chain compounds often composed of identical molecules. Think of a string of pearls. Nearly all plastics originate from living matter formed with solar energy by photosynthesis in plants on land and sea.
For example, rayon and cellophane are made from cellulose which is a polymer of glucose derived from wood and are therefore plastics.
Cotton is pure cellulose and is therefore also a plastic. Natural rubber and synthetic rubber are polymers and therefore plastics. Oil, coal, and natural gas are all products of solar energy that produced forests and sea life that turned into fossil fuels over the millennia.
Today they are made into polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride, otherwise known as PVC or vinyl.
To begin, despite the vast amount of propaganda, plastics are not toxic, they are inert. This is one of the reasons we package and wrap much of our food in plastic. It helps prevent spoilage from bacteria and mold, and protects the food from contamination by actual toxic substances.
If plastic were toxic, we would not wrap our food in it. Plastic does not miraculously become toxic in the ocean.
There is a big difference between pollution and litter. Pollution is either a toxic substance or one that is harmful to life in other ways. Plastic litter may appear unsightly, but like driftwood on a beach it is not toxic and does not harm life. Like driftwood in the ocean, plastic promotes life, as many marine species attach themselves to it, lay their eggs on it, or eat other species that are living on it.
Floating pieces of plastic are like small floating reefs that enhance rather that harm marine life. Many plastic objects are in the form of containers, so unlike most driftwood can be used as shelter from predators and habitat for breeding.
Perhaps the most unique benefit of floating bits of plastic in the sea is their use by seabirds as an alternative for the traditional items used as digestive aids in their gizzards. Birds have no teeth, so they swallow their food whole. All birds have two stomachs, one like ours and another that is a muscular organ, the gizzard, used to grind large hard pieces of food so they can be digested.
To aid in this process, birds on the land use pebbles fed to them by their parents from birth and then they gather pebbles for themselves all their lives.
There are no pebbles in the ocean, so seabirds use floating bits of pumice from undersea volcanoes, bits of hard wood, floating nuts from trees, and since plastic was introduced to the oceans about 60 years ago, suitable bits of floating plastic. Many studies by bird specialists have found that this has no negative effects on chicks or adults.
Yet Sir David Attenborough, The Smithsonian, and Greenpeace falsely allege that the parent birds are “feeding” plastic to their chicks “mistaking it for food” and that this is killing their chicks. They know what a bird gizzard is, but they never use that word. They know they are lying for the sake of notoriety and donations.
It would be beneficial to sea life if the environmental community and the international fishing industry would work to develop a program to prevent damaged fishnets from being thrown in the ocean. Discarded fishnets can catch fish and other sea life and are nicknamed “ghost nets.”
It should be possible to incentivize fishers to bring their damaged nets to the dock where they can be recycled or disposed of in a manner that does no harm.
See more here: bizpacreview.com
Bold emphasis added
Header image: Energy Live News
About the author: Dr. Patrick Moore, PhD in Ecology and co-founder of Greenpeace is the author of the recently published Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom. Dr. Moore is a Director of the CO2 Coalition based in Arlington, Virginia.
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.
Josh
| #
https://www.google.com/maps/@23.8437907,-137.6344462,2166793m/data=!3m1!1e3
This is where they say it is. I’ve gotta say, I can’t see it. Although these may not be verbatim images from Google, but rather digital reconstructions.
Reply
Alan
| #
If it really exists then why all the discussion of it and no attempt to collect it. Prince William could have an Earthshot project if he really cared.
Reply
Charles Higley
| #
WHOI from Woods Hole, Mass. runs a survey every other year across the “Garbage Patch.” They have been seeing asymptotically decreasing plastic, with rapidly decreasing size, over the last 20 years to the point that they have to seine longer distances for longer times to capture enough pieces to analyze statistically.
On the other end, the radical environmentalist liars extrapolate that, if there is a Pacific Ocean gyre of plastic, there must be one in each of the other oceans. The propaganda is so much that some have proposed putting laid off fishing vessels to work harvesting this mountain of plastic. If it was so much, it sounds like they need bulldozer attachments on the vessels. Of course, this is stupid from the start.
The new alarm is regarding microplastics and that sea animals and birds are suffering from this pollution. First off, to maintain any level of microplastics in a birds requires that they are fed a constant concentration of such particles—they pass on through just as they through us—we call it roughage. Second, the facts that we are seeing microplastics means that they are breaking down from larger pieces quite nicely. Where is the down side for this? None. So, they time to break down, so what?
Environmentalists are prone to consider anything produced or resulting from man’s activities to be bad. They demonize our carbon and ecological footprint, unwilling to recognize that every animal on Earth has such footprints and it’s all natural. We are a culmination of natural life on Earth reaching new heights. Sure, we need to learn how to control our footprint, but it is suicide to eliminate our footprint because it means we are gone, IMHO.
Reply
Sol
| #
Unfortunately the problem does exist. Sure the term “islands of plastic” in the middle of the ocean is a figure of speech and there are no actual islands of plastic like that, but in reality the amount of plastic in the oceans is insane.
Places like Brazil or India and China, just to mention a few, buy plastic garbage from western world countries and then dump them just outside their coast lines.
For exemple, India as a law which gives the jurisdiction of the sea lime, to the governor of the region.
He than gets payed by cargo, oil tankers and cruise ships owners to allow them to clean up their tanks in the sea.
Years a go me and my friend had to flee, chased by the Indian navy for attempting to film the dumping operation from the sky using a paraglide tied to a speed boat.”Goa”
Here is an other one, when I was living in Brazil, I Used to collect every morning at list two garbage sacks filled with small plastic pieces, and all kinds of other larger plastic pieces often branded with made in USA labels and that just from in front of my home “morro de são paulo”
One more, I was once arrested in Hong kong for cleaning up a beach and pilling all the garbage by a trash can..
So yes the problem with plastic does exist, and most likely, if we would be able to callect it all,mit would be at list as big as great britain.
Plastic is toxic, carcinogenic and an abomination, and should have been replaced with organic products like hemp a long time ago.
But perhaps some of you, needs to travel to those places I have listed to see for your self what it means for those living in second and third world countries to have to live with our garbage.
Reply
Charles Higley
| #
Over 90% of plastic pollution in the oceans comes from 10 SE Asian cities. So, most of this is not our problem. They are also aware of the problem and there is evidence of motions to fix this as they develop. African coastal countries did a cleanup day a few years ago and it was quite gratifying to see how little plastic was found. Demonizing plastics is wrong. Demonize how they are handled and by who.
BTW, China has declined importing our plastic waste in the last couple of years. So, that is not an issue anymore. We deal with it all here and we do not dump it into the ocean.
Reply
Sol
| #
Demonizing plastic is being coherent. Plastic is carcinogenic!
We do not need it to survive!
If you think that plastic in the sea is only an asian problem, I advise you to go travel through south America and have a look for your self.
And it is not a problem limited to just Asia or south America, the sea is dying everywhere.
Colorful corals are not existing anymore, now, even places like the great barrier reef which used to be having one of the most colorful coral reef in the world, is now grey.
The same goes for more of less everywhere, including the Mediterranean see.
Tropical island which used to be known for their beautiful,reefs, have now just brown and gray dead corals.
And if you do not trust what I am saying, then go and have a look at the cinematic archives of then “20 years ago” and now.
If your country is not “officially” exporting its garbage, be aware of the fact that it does it without declaring it anyway.
And I am not saying that is just your government’s doing, but what every country does anyway.
Billions of tons of plastic gets crashed and stuffed into container ships, which other corrupted politicians in charge of pore countries cashes in from.
Most of that garbage gets then dumped not just in the middle of oceans but also in their or their neighbors national waters.
I have sayid and I’ll say it again. Plastic is toxic, carcinogenic, and we do not need it.
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Sol,
Do you want to go back to the good old days when cars were made of steel and got ten miles/ gallon? Are you going to have the fillings in your teeth replaced with mercury fillings? Plastics are an improvement over many of the things they replace and are cheaper. Not all plastics are toxic which is why there are silicon implants used to repair a persons body. Some components of plastic, like ethylene oxide, are toxic but when they are converted to plastic (polyethylene) they lose their reactivity and their toxicity. Try going on a plastic free lifestyle and see if they are not needed.
Herb
Reply
Sol
| #
Dear Herb, I do not need fillings for my teeth, I use burch sugar also known as xylitol, I also do not drive a car.
Plastic can be replaced with natural so called “plastics”
Ford used it to build cars which outlasted the metal body of their counterparts.
As a nature lover, and as someone which enjoys tracking in the wild, I know that I do not need it to survive.
I also know that every time I go in the wild, I always return with bags filled of your beloved plastic, dumped in the nature by other “plastic lovers”.
And that is not just every time a go to a beach or on a river site, but also in forests, jungles, savana, deserts, and every freaking where.
So no I do not like plastic and I do not think that it should be commercialized.
And yes, I would love to be able to live in place in which I would not have to see it ever again.
But once again, I am a nature lover more than a things lover.
Anyhow, you can trust the fact that we do have the technology and know how to replace it with natural materials and compounds, and that the world would be a much more happy place if we would chose natural and organic over synthetic.
Sol
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Sol,
If containers were made with papered treated with paraffin to waterproof them do you think that those who litter would be more or less likely to dispose of them in the wild rather than toting them back for proper disposal? Don’t blame the plastic blame those who use disposable containers and discard them anywhere it’s convenient.
Herb
Sol
| #
Hi Herb
Plastic is toxic, carcinogenic, polluting and I, my family and my children can do without it.
There is nothing more I feel like saying to you on this topic.
Like it or not that is the fact.
Have a nice day
Sol.
Tom0mason
| #
Hi Sol,
I’m curious as to what non-plastic device you are using to type your missives?
As far as I understand it with any of these devices, there are no (reliable) replacements for either the electronic components’ plastic housing and/or coatings, or the printed circuit board (PCB) to which they are soldered.
I take it you have no man-made fibers about you, in your home, or on/in your means of transport.
If this is all so then you have become completely risk-free from plastics (if you stay within the confines of your plastic-free property) but I would insists you have diminished your range of enjoyment of a modern life.
Reply
Roger Higgs
| #
Islets on the NW flanks of two equatorial Pacific atolls (Majuro and Tarawa), among the remotest places on Earth, visited by me in 2019, are strewn with drifted plastic water bottles, mostly from SE Asian nations (largely chucked off fishing vessels?). The Atlantic shores around Bude, Cornwall, fairly pristine in 1982 when I started my doctoral research on the cliffs, today are ankle-deep (or deeper) in plastic trash at the high-tide line.
Reply
Andrew Pilkington
| #
Then why not just fix emission problems at Power Stations and burn the damned stuff, instead of using Biofuel? That would get rid of Plastic and provide Electricity, it would save millions of Trees, in the process.
Reply
Andrew Pilkington
| #
It would help Third World Countries to grow, too.
Reply
Kevin Doyle
| #
If the author, Patrick Moore, is incorrect, then this would be easy to verify with satellite, or aircraft, or shipboard photos of the fabled ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. Oddly, none have ever been published by Greenpeace.
Also, I was told there is a ‘Great Atlantic Garbage Patch’ in the Sargasso Sea, south of Bermuda. Having personally sailed through the Sargasso Sea every year for the last decade, I have seen no plastic garbage patch. Only lots of seaweed.
While sailing offshore from America to the Caribbean, the only place I see floating plastic or balloons is occasionally off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.
However, sensational fairy tales sound much better than reality…
Reply
Kiren
| #
Don’t animals choke on plastic debris?
Reply
Herb Rose
| #
Hi Kiren,
Most marine animals do not chew food but either swallow it whole or bite off bits they can swallow. Choking is where something gets lodged in the throat preventing breathing Since most marine life does not breathe through their throats, but through gills, they do not choke.
Herb
Reply