Images such as this appear on the Internet and in the Main Stream Media, alongside of almost every article or report about the pollution of the Earth’s oceans with plastics of all kinds. The image is usually associated with the words “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in the text of the article. The implication by association is that the image is a photograph of said ‘garbage patch.’

There are low-lying slums upriver — tropical storms or even simple heavy rainfalls wash trash off the streets and into the river — hurricanes wash entire neighborhoods into the river. There appears to be a door-less cheap refrigerator floating amongst the other debris.

There is a lot of plastic trash and debris going to the world’s oceans. It used to be dumped intentionally — New York City barged its municipal trash out to sea and tipped it in for years and years, as recently as 1992.

There is no longer any country or municipality known to be disposing of municipal trash and garbage at sea today. Most trash and garbage is fairly readily decomposed in the natural environment and in modern landfills. Plastics, however, are less prone to biodegradation — and some types of plastic are very resistant. As the two photos above illustrate, Manilla Bay and Rio Ozama, lots of plastic ends up in the sea.

Dr. Jenna R. Jambeck is one of the world’s leading experts on trash — and specifically on plastics entering the oceans. Her group at the Environmental Engineering College of Engineering, University of Georgia has published many papers on the problem, most recently “Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean” (summary here — full .pdf here). From the summary:

Read the article “Separating Fact from Fiction in Stories about an Ocean of Plastic” on wattsupwiththat.com.