Plastic Debris Fouls Atlantic Ocean

The SSV Corwith Cramer is involved in the research of plastics affecting the oceans and the scientists on board have discovered an area of the North Atlantic Ocean where plastic debris accumulates. The region is said to compare with the well-documented "great Pacific garbage patch". Karen Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association says that the issue of plastics had been "largely ignored" in the Atlantic.
She announced the findings of a two-decade-long study at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, US. The work is the conclusion of the longest and most extensive record of plastic marine debris in any ocean basin. Scientists and students from the SEA collected plastic and marine debris in fine mesh nets that were towed behind a research vessel.

"We know that many marine organisms are consuming these plastics and we know this has a bad effect on seabirds in particular."
The nets dragged along were half-in and half-out of the water, picking up debris and small marine organisms from the sea surface. The researchers carried out 6,100 tows in areas of the Caribbean and the North Atlantic - off the coast of the US. More than half of these expeditions revealed floating pieces of plastic on the water surface. These were pieces of low-density plastic that are used to make many consumer products, including plastic bags. Dr Lavender Law said that the pieces of plastic she and her team picked up in the nets were generally very small - up to 1cm across.
"We found a region fairly far north in the Atlantic Ocean where this debris appears to be concentrated and remains over long periods of time," she explained. "More than 80% of the plastic pieces we collected in the tows were found between 22 and 38 degrees north. So we have a latitude for [where this] rubbish seems to accumulate," she said.

Forget the shells kids. Now you can collect used condoms and peices of syringes when you go for a day at the beach. As for you deep sea fishermen, why you can catch as many old garbage bags and disposable diapers as you can eat. Life is good.