Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Topic: Oceans: Hydrological Cycle, Relief of the Ocean Floor, Temperature and Salinity · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a huge area of floating plastic waste in the North Pacific Ocean. It forms inside the North Pacific Gyre, a giant ring of ocean currents that turns slowly. The currents carry floating waste from the coasts and from ships into the calm centre of the ring, and the waste stays there. Most of it is not a solid island. It is a thin "soup" of tiny plastic bits called microplastics, mixed with larger pieces such as nets and bottles. It shows how plastic pollution can spread across a whole ocean.
Example
The patch lies in the open North Pacific between Hawaii and California, far from any coast.
Don't confuse with
- North Pacific Gyre: the gyre is the ring of currents. The garbage patch is the waste that this ring gathers and traps.
Related concepts
- Ocean acidification
- Ocean deoxygenation
- Marine heatwave
- Microplastics
- Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
- BBNJ Agreement