Thinking only of todays catch, Not tomorrows Kill

by Gerry Rasmus
(Jomtien, Thailand)

Aloha:

This was drifting when we pulled it to shore. Things like this cause accidents with Jet Skis, Small boats, brake props, stops ships, takes divers to remove and repair, rips, kills coral and other animal and plant life on the sea floor.

It took 6 of us to drag it to the road's edge to be removed. A tangled mess of floating waste, dragging the bottom, oil-soaked line, fishing net, people that do things like this, should have their fishing license removed, some jail time and a heavy fine.

Barry's Response - Well thank goodness you people were there to take care of this little part of our planet. And thank you for doing so and informing the rest of us of the situation.

Garbage deposited into the water by mankind has been collecting there. Some floating, some sinking to the bottom. Ocean currents carry it slowly and, combined with wind patterns, draw the garbage out to sea in a vortex-shaped pattern.

Most of these pieces
float near the surface, but just under so they are not easy to see. The pieces tend to be quite small, so they're even harder to detect individually. Sampling techniques employ fishing nets to determine how much is captured.

Some of the areal concentrations found in samples have been several hundred thousand pieces, weighing a total of 5 kg or more per square kilometre. With an estimated area for the patch in the Pacific Ocean about the size of North America itself, that adds up to a lot o'junk.

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