Caribbean garbage patch - photo and video

[Altair]

Caribbean garbage patch off the coast of Honduras.

Previously:

Inside an ocean cleanup system - GIF
Ocean garbage cleanup - GIF
Beach trash collection buggy - video
Florence garbage truck dumpster crane - GIF

[hemmjo]

I have done some mission work in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In the areas I worked; in the city of Port-Au-Prince Haiti, and remote villages around Imbert and Luperon in the Dominican Republic, I venture to say that MOST of the populations of both countries just toss trash on the streets and roads. In the rainy seasons, they have very heavy rains which flushes all of the litter into the oceans. I was in Haiti to witness the "cleansing" of a very heavily littered river. One day is was little trickle, the banks and bed covered with plastic, paper, broken furniture, etc. The next say, it was almost pristine, as the litter had been flushed away.

I am NOT isolating those two countries, they are just examples where I have been to see it. Even in the U.S. litter is a huge problem. I live in a once rural area that is now growing more houses than corn or soybeans. I walk my dog around the edge every day. Two or 3 times each week have to take 5 gallon bucket and a litter gripper to keep up with the litter.

Maresk has an ocean clean-up division. I would be curious to see if they are making any progress. From the link, "We sail the oceans every day and see the plastic problem growing. At current levels, by 2050 our oceans will contain more plastic than fish. With an estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic waste littering all major ocean basins. This crucial problem is a high priority on our agenda. That´s the reason why Maersk Supply Services keeps providing offshore project management and vessel operations support to a re-developed offshore cleaning system."

Other interesting reading, Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Something much more scary to me is all of the CHEMICALS that we cannot see that are accumulating on our water. I believe the more developed economies are contributing much more to this kind of pollution than the litter we can see.