{"id":24785,"date":"2014-04-21T16:52:05","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T16:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/?p=331314"},"modified":"2014-04-21T16:52:05","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T16:52:05","slug":"5-gyres-of-plastic-trash-pollutes-the-worlds-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/5-gyres-of-plastic-trash-pollutes-the-worlds-oceans\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Gyres of Plastic Trash Pollutes the World\u2019s Oceans"},"content":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/files.cdn.ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/marcus5gyres-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"marcus5gyres\"><\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/author\/meriksen\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"meriksen\" src=\"http:\/\/files.cdn.ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/meriksen.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\"><\/a>It&#8217;s the silver lining of a tragedy when it takes a plane crash and the death of all its passengers to bring attention to an <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2012\/05\/10\/plastic-trash-is-altering-ocean-habitats-in-unexpected-ways\/\" target=\"_blank\">environmental catastrophe<\/a> unfolding on a different time scale. <a href=\"http:\/\/5gyres.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">5 Gyres Institute<\/a> has traveled 40,000 miles through all 5 gyres, including the Indian Ocean gyre, to discover each one contains a <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/01\/17\/new-garbage-patch-discovered\/\" target=\"_blank\">garbage patch<\/a> filled with plastic pollution. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, we sailed from Perth, Australia to Mauritius, straight through the Indian Ocean gyre, to discover that garbage patch. What we found is the same junk that&#8217;s confusing rescue workers looking for remnants of the Malaysian Airlines lost aircraft. Plenty of fishing floats, tangled nets, bottles, crates, buckets, bags and everything else made in plastic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">One year ago we crossed the Bay of Bengal, a feeder region for the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch. I caught my first sea snake in a net, along with a bendy straw.<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_331328\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"500\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/files.cdn.ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/snakestrawfi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo credit: 5 Gyres Institute\" src=\"http:\/\/files.cdn.ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/snakestrawfi.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\"><\/a> Photo credit: 5 Gyres Institute[\/caption]\n<p>That&#8217;s our new reality. What was wild space in the 20th century can now be dubbed &#8220;waste space.&#8221; Welcome to the Plastisphere.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash;&mdash;&ndash;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/10\/28\/study-shows-plastic-microbeads-facial-scrubs-pollute-great-lakes\/\">Study Shows&nbsp;<b>Plastic<\/b>&nbsp;Microbeads in Facial Scrubs Pollute Great Lakes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2014\/04\/07\/22-facts-plastic-pollution-10-things-can-do-about-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">22 Facts About Plastic Pollution (And 10 Things We Can Do About It)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/11\/15\/10-ways-to-use-less-plastic-every-day\/\">10 Ways to Use Less&nbsp;<b>Plastic<\/b>&nbsp;Every Day<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash;&mdash;&ndash;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,57],"tags":[4737,12517,2911,2906,2795,1562],"class_list":["post-24785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-building-posts","category-leed-news","tag-featured","tag-featured-home","tag-insights","tag-news","tag-plastic","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}