Through the Great Garbage Patch anybody?

[Owly055]

There really is not a forum specific to this sort of topic, so I'm posting it here, as I'm sure we have members who would like to make the voyage from SF to Hanalei  Bay or Nawilwili, etc.   

    The New York Times had an interesting piece on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, including maps of the 5 oceanic garbage patches.  The worst for it's size appearing to be in the Bay of Bengal.    The LongPac should pass right through the Pacific Garbage Patch, and from what I've gathered from those who have traversed this route, it's not very evident from the deck of a sailboat. Of course most folks route south to avoid the North Pacific High, which would seem to often be right over it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/climate/great-pacific-garbage-patch.html?emc=edit_th_180323&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=632877320323

An organization called The Ocean Cleanup   https://www.theoceancleanup.com/  Is working with donated funds to develop ways to bring in larger pieces of plastic using drifting floating collector booms, testing prototypes in the North Sea, in hopes of deploying the first ones in the Pacific this year or next year.  The idea is that by trapping larger plastic items, they can be prevented from breaking down into microparticles, which ultimately enter the food chain and end up on your dinner plate, not to mention killing sea life.  Whales, and other filter feeders are particularly susceptible to small plastic particles that can clog their baleen.   Many whales feed by taking in large amounts of water, and filtering it as they discharge it, leaving krill and other marine that form their diet life trapped inside.   The baleen is the "filter" system.

     Of more direct interest to us is the work being done on anti fouling which is only peripherally mentioned in the section about their north sea testing.   

Antifouling

As with any object floating in the ocean, biofouling could start to grow on our systems. Biofouling could affect the system's performance as well as attract sea-life to it, which is why we are taking the opportunity to test anti-fouling at the same time. The anti-fouling is generously provided by AkzoNobel, as part of the five-year long partnership instigated early summer. Several variations of their biocide-free Intersleek antifouling are applied to parts of the screen to compare the results after 6 months.

      This entire effort I think bears watching.................. We humans have been trashing the world around us for thousands of years.  Only recently have we begun serious efforts to reverse the process............ too little too late.

                                                                                            H.W.