Garbage Island is getting worse: Drones capture massive plastic waste islands and say Tsunami waste is adding to them
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It captured the world's attention when a huge 'garbage island' was spotted in the middle of the Pacific.
Now, researchers have returned to the area known as the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' - and say it is getting worse.
Researchers are spending 30 days living on a boat in the area, and have even taken a drone to capture images from the sky.
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A drone shot of 'bouy island' made up entirely of Japansese bouys washed out to see by the tsunami
Bouy Island, where the team say an underwater ecosystem is developing around the tsunami waste.
GARBAGE ISLAND
After returning from the Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu — in 1997, Capt. Charles Moore noticed some plastic debris floating in the water.
Though it didn't seem like an overwhelming amount of trash, he recorded log entries every hour, noting the debris in the water.
When he reached solid land, Moore told scientists about what he found, then returned two years later to assess the extent of the garbage patch using more scientific sampling methods - and now the team has returned again.
'Our research crew is currently living in one of the most polluted areas of the world,' the team at Algalita, founded by Charles Moore, who first discovered the problem, said.
'This place, 1,000 miles away from land, redefined Algalita's mission and ignited a fire to study the plastic plague destroying our oceans.
'This is the North Pacific Gyre, home of the swirling vortex of plastic trash. '
'The persistence and increasing quantity of plastic debris has created new habitats—essentially 'plastic reefs' that sea creatures have made their homes', the team say.
They plan to take plastic debris samples from the same stations we sampled in 1999, 2008 and 2009.
'The ultimate goal is to evaluate long-term trends and changes in the Gyre by merging the data from previous expeditions with new data,' they say.
The team has already found that there may be more trash on the ocean surface than previously thought.
The researchers say the waste is also underwater.
Reshearchers are spending 30 days at see to analyse the buildup of 'garbage islands'
A 2014 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the ocean's plastic may be mysteriously disappearing, with much less debris in the water than had been predicted, based on the global rates of plastic production and disposal.
On his current trip, Moore did a similar 4.5-mile (7.2 kilometer) trawl of the ocean, but also used drones to assess the extent of trash from above.
The sample from the one hour trawl produced an alarming amount of plastics.
Captain Moore said 'this is extremely disturbing to me that 260 miles from the center of the gyre we pull a sample that appears to be a thousands of times more plastic by weight than plankton.
'This is worse than the samples I was getting five years ago out in the center of the garbage patch, and we're still on the periphery.
'We found 100 times more plastic by weight with the drone, than we estimated from the trawl,' Moore told Livescience.
They also say debris from the Japanese 2011 Tsunami is created its own 'mini islands'.
The team has already found one, dubbed 'bouy Island', that they believe weights 7 tons.
The team is collecting samples of the garbage they find.
Under garbage island: the researchers are taking samples from the area of the broken down plastic
'When the tsunami hit on March 11th, 2011, it must have ripped out this array and sent it out to sea,' said Captain Charles Moore on the organisation's web site..
'We can thus date the time this island has been afloat; 3 years and 4 months.
'In addition to the buoys, the island is anchored by metal dangling from the ropes, perhaps part of the anchoring system for the shallow oyster aquaculture operation.
'Jesus and I mapped the island this morning using the dingy length of 10 feet and a tape measure to get its size and the dimension of its coves and rope beaches and reefs.'
The team has also found more permanent fixtures in the garbage patch's landscape.
A selection of the material captured in just 30 minutes before the team has even reached garbage island (left). The found fish and other animals living under some of the islands (right)
For instance, the team has discovered a 'trash island' more than 50 feet (15 meters) long, with 'beaches,' a 'rocky coastline,' and 'underwater mountains' and reefs made up of ropes, buoys and other plastic debris, Moore said.
Mussels, clams, sea anemones and seaweed were found sheltering on this artificial island, Moore said.
'It's showing signs of permanence,' Moore told Livescience.
'There will be a new floating world in our oceans if we don't stop polluting with plastics.'
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