"Salty Plastic Gumbo of the Sea" or, "We Need a Plastic Magnet of Considerable Girth and Effectiveness"

[via www.independent.co.uk]

_

An article in today's The Independent reminded of something horrifying and largely unknown outside of environmentalist circles, lurking in the northern Pacific ocean. I first learned about this last fall, and it crosses my mind every time I leave the supermarket with my hands full of random groceries because I once again left my reusable cloth bag in the car, and I now can't bring myself to use a plastic bag.

_

It is so substantial that it has two official names: "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch", and "Trash Vortex." While the latter title sounds like some failed punk rock experiment, it is in fact two swirling masses of plastic flotsam, each the area of Texas, floating from the surface down 30 feet or so. This is a result of the North Pacific gyre, a slow-moving, doldrums-like area of the Pacific.

_
The article does not propose any solution, but describes the problem in detail. Do we wait it out as we gradually phase out our hyperconsumption of petroleum products, as they have done with plastic shopping bags in Ireland? The remaining 46,000 pieces of plastic waste per square mile of ocean would probably decompose over 50-300 years, endangering wildlife and entering human bloodstreams through tainted fish and other animals as plastic slowly breaks down.

_

Or is there a massively serious, man-made solution to this massively serious man-made problem? Humans have excelled at using offshore structures for the procurement of the very oil used to make this wayward aquatic garbage--can we utilize any form of this technology for the processing or collection of this waste? What about superindustrial fishing by way of deep bottom trawling? Certainly, the scale of the Trash Vortex is such that an endeavor like this would take decades or centuries--but the cynic in me has concluded that our dependence on petroleum is not going to effectively end until it has all been obtained and consumed. However, my former roommate and classmate Andrew has assembled some intruiging images of marine structures that speak to the potential for a mechanical solution for all this goddamn trash.

_

In addition, this topic reminded me of a recent post in BLDGBLOG about the possible Pacific tectonic plate unexpectedly pulling apart, and how this could affect any potential landmass that could eventually emerge. Could the sites of this swirling garbage eventually become some form of colonized, mid-ocean temporary construction for the duration of the clean-up? Is on-site reprocessing of this plastic, into usable forms even possible, powered by massive-scale solar array? Given the monstrous scale of the raw material floating around, perhaps the very structure of this facility could be created by reclaimed ocean plastic.

_
In lieu of a real answer to this very very big problem, I couldn't help sketch what I have realized equates to a child's glib solution to a complicated problem: This is some kind of barge-type vessel with a big open end to intake, store, and compress or otherwise process his plastic trash:

[Before you call this childish and irrational, please note the radar dish, solar panels and rather sweet helicopter. It was when I found myself drawing the helicopter that I realized I was right back in 6th grade study hall. And also check out the break-mark (in black, for the unfamiliar) added later to indicate the potential hugeness of this contraption. ]

Shortly after drawing this bad-boy, I realized I had essentially sketched [by accident] the ocean trawler that Mr. Burns enlists to make "Li'l Lisa Slurry" by netting and pureeing any and all ocean life, featured in an episode of the Simpsons...thank goodness I'm not in charge of taking care of huge garbage vortices, it make sense to me that ingenuity we possess to plunder the ocean could be used to restore it.

[Trawl filth, not fish.]

Updated 2/12/2008: Inhabitat has posted a project that could easily apply to self-sufficient offshore waste processing facilities.

[via inhabitat.com]