World's largest rubbish dump... The Pacific Ocean
There are about 100 million tonnes of rubbish in the North Pacific Gyre. This massive liquid dump is larger than Australia and contains bits of plastic bags, computers, planes, footballs, cigarette butts, tarps, toilet seats, tyres and other synthetic waste. About ten percent of plastics produced each year end up here.
Also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it is actually two sections of ocean: the eastern gyre and the western gyre. These two massive sections are joined by an 11 thousand kilometre current stream and float between Japan and North America.
Flotillas of yellow rubber ducks have been periodically caught inside the gyres. These were part of an armada of about ten thousand ducks which fell off a Chinese container ship in 1992 and have been studied by oceanographers ever since.
The North Pacific Gyre is an area with little or no wind. It is avoided by sailors. Early trading vessels were frequently caught for weeks in the gyre's doldrums with crews facing starvation as they waited for the winds to pick up. In utter desperation horses, cows and sheep were often thrown overboard to reduce a ship's load and escape the area's becalmed waters.
According to marine researcher Charles Moore, about 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds die annually because of this gigantic plastic soup, while the number of fish gulping down the plastic plankton is countless. And yes many of those fish end up on our dinner plates.
But for retired Candian oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer this abominable leviathanic dump is a research source. Ebbesmeyer has been studying the world's ocean currents. His research has assisted in predicting global climate patterns and changes.
Among his most useful tools were those which plunged into the gyre's fringes on Januray 10, 1992. During a massive storm twelve forty foot containers fell off a cargo ship bound for the US from China. The containers tumble into the North Pacific at 44.7 degrees north and 178.1 degrees east.
Inside one of the containers were 29,000 yellow, green, blue and red rubber bath toys. Over 10,000 of these toys were yellow rubber ducks. This armada of ducks has been floating around the world's ocean currents ever since....Some got stuck in the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre for a while then headed through the Bering Straits, floated around Canada and Greenland and then down the US east coast to Maine. After that they paddled onto England. Another much larger group headed up to Alaska then floated down to South America, across to Hawaii and then to Australia.
Over the years some of the ducks have drowned but many others are still floating about. Oh and if you find one they're collectible and worth about AUD100 each.