In the Pacific Ocean an enormous accidental rubbish patch has formed, as a result of modern society’s dependence on plastic and the way we dispose of it. This ‘great Pacific garbage patch’, which is almost the size of Western Europe, is not a solid mass but a kind of marine soup, the main ingredient of which is floating plastic debris.
The North Pacific subtropical zone (see Figure 1) is a perennial high-pressure area — an enormous spiralling region of warm equatorial air that pulls in winds and turns them gently in an anticlockwise direction. Several major sea currents also converge here, bringing with them waste debris from the Pacific coasts of Southeast Asia, North America, Canada and Mexico.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
