Muellstrudel
Plastic garbage patches on the sea surface
Own illustration based on a montage of satellite photos of the earth's surface: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation).
Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation).
Plastic garbage patches
There are five major plastic garbage patches worldwide known for their compacted plastic particles. The most extensive is that in the North Pacific, which is about the size of Central Europe and contains an estimated one million pieces of plastic per square kilometer. There may also be a sixth, smaller one in the Barents Sea northeast of Norway. In these sea vortices, however, the plastic waste does not float as a closed carpet. Counts have shown that even in the centre of the vortices, on an area of one square kilometre, an average of about 50 to 60 plastic parts in sizes of up to two centimetres float on an area of one square kilometre (Alfred-Wegner Institute).Computer simulations of ocean currents suggest that the ocean vortices are interconnected by smaller flows, and that much of the garbage migrates over time into the North Pacific vortices with these currents (Alfred-Wegner Institute),