Gyres
The ocean moves, because of the rotation of the earth and the winds blowing. The Coriolis effect works as following: in the Northern Hemisphere, ocean currents move to the right, in the Southern Hemisphere the ocean currents move to the left. There are five of these large rotation oceans, that are called ‘gyres’. These are huge vortexes in which all plastic slowly float into the middle. The five major gyres are: the North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian Ocean, North Atlantic and the south Atlantic Gyre. To give you an image, the North Pacific Gyre is said to be 34 times of the Netherlands, France and Spain together.
Hotspots
Sometimes plastic comes together for other reasons than circulating currents as in the gyre. These places are called hotspots. The Mediterranean Sea is one such hotspot. First of all, there is much plastic coming from rivers that flows into the Mediterranean Sea and from the coastal areas. Secondly, the plastic can’t escape form the Mediterranean Sea, because the connection with the Atlantic Ocean is so narrow that the plastic can’t flow into the Atlantic Ocean. In other words, the plastic which ends up in the Mediterranean Sea, stays there.
Hotspots are created because of:
- Bays lined with large cities
- Bays into which plastic floats and remains
- River mouths
- Coastlines where industries are situated
- Places or islands where different ocean currents confluence
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