What happens to marine plastics?
Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ – an endless floating waste of plastic rubbish. In this fantastic video he draws attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.
Charles Moore is founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He captains the foundation's research vessel, the Alguita, documenting the great expanses of plastic waste that now litter our oceans.
A yachting competition across the Pacific first led veteran seafarer Charles Moore to what some have since deemed the world's largest "landfill" -- actually a huge soup of floating plastic rubbish the size of the state of Texas (twice over). Trapped in an enormous slow whirlpool called the Pacific Gyre, this Great Pacific Garbage Patch in some places outweighs even the surface waters' biomass six-to-one.
Moore said after his return voyage, "There were shampoo caps and soap bottles and plastic bags and fishing floats as far as I could see. Here I was in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic."
Since his discovery, Moore has been analyzing the giant litter patch and its disastrous effects on ocean life. Through the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, he hopes to raise awareness about the problem and find ways to restrict its growth. He's now leading several expeditions to sample plastic fragments across thousands of miles of the Pacific.