This Issue:

Table of Contents

Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

Mini-Lesson

Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

The Big Garbage Patch

Bryan Walsh

A growing mass of plastic garbage is floating in the Pacific Ocean. What can be done to clean it up?

Have you ever wanted to put a message in a bottle and cast it out to sea, hoping it would reach land? Don't! That plastic bottle could end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, floating in a collection of trash known as the Plastic Vortex. The vortex is an accumulation of plastic debris swept into the Pacific. The garbage comes directly from beaches or flows out of rivers. It is carried by ocean currents in a swirling pattern to a spot between Hawaii and the mainland United States.

Plastic bags, bottles and toys end up in the vortex. Some scientists estimate it to be twice the size of Texas. "It's huge," notes Doug Woodring, an ocean conservationist. But "unfortunately the ocean is a big place, and once [the garbage is] out of sight, it's out of mind."

Woodring is trying to change that. With help from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, he and others launched an expedition to the vortex to explore it, take photographs and video, and alert the public to the growing threat of ocean waste. Chemicals in the plastic end up in the water. This may harm fish and eventually us, when we eat the fish.

Since the huge garbage patch floats in international waters, no government has been willing to take on the difficult task of cleaning it up. One simple solution is to stop adding to it, by using less plastic, and recycling when we do. Woodring hopes people will realize that the plastic they throw in the garbage doesn't just disappear. "This is something that everyone can see and touch, and make a difference."

Next: Kenya's Long Dry Season