Atlantic Garbage Patch (PHOTOS)

LONGBEACH, CA -- In January and February of this year a team of scientists, researchers, artists and journalists traveled to The North Atlantic Gyre in an area of the ocean known as the Sargasso Sea. It is the aim of The 5 Gyres Project (which I help with media relations on a volunteer basis) to sail aboard the plastic pollution research vessel, The Sea Dragon. The vessel is sailing to all major subtropical oceanic gyres (North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean) in order to study the every growing problem of marine plastic pollution. The below slideshow demonstrates what garbage in a gyre really looks like.

Islands in the Atlantic are extremely exposed and therefore collect a lot of plastic debris. The 5 Gyres team assembled this collage on a Bermuda beach with plastic found in less then ten minutes. In the next two years, The 5 Gyres Project will travel to all major subtropical oceanic gyres (of which there are five of in the world) studying plastic pollution. Based on data from modeling, it is believed that debris will collect in these areas much like the North Pacific. This expedition confirmed that hypothesis in The North Atlantic Gyre.

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Follow Stiv J. Wilson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@agentstiv