The Long Life of Materials

摘要

By some accounts, it's bigger than Texas. Extending to a depth of 3 ft. on the ocean's surface, the Great Pa-cific Garbage Patch drifts in two main clumps, one between Hawaii and California, the other off the Japanese coast. And it's growing. Samples taken by researchers turn up bottle caps, toys, fishing lines, buoys and other plastic parts that float, breaking down into ever-smaller pieces that get ingested by sea life and birds. "Plastics are now one of the most common pollutants of ocean waters worldwide," said Charles Moore, merchant marine captain and founder of the Algalita Marine Research and Education Institute, in a New York Times editorial last year titled "Choking the Oceans With Plastic." A study he led in 2009 found that particles of plastic outnumbered plankton in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by six to one. In his editorial, he calls for better-designed products to reduce the amount of garbage being produced.