http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_17037052 Pacific Ocean 'garbage patch' exaggerated, new analysis asserts Updated: 01/08/2011 11:30:47 AM PST MercuryNews.com

On her April 22, 2009, Earth Day show, TV host Oprah Winfrey described a plastic garbage patch twice the size of Texas swirling around the Pacific Ocean as "the most shocking thing I've ever seen."

But on Tuesday, a scientist released an analysis debunking as "hyperbole" the vastness of the ocean garbage swirl, citing Winfrey's comment as an example.

"Where did she see it?" asked Angelicque White, an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State University.

White joined a crew that traveled from Hawaii to Southern California in summer 2008 through the "North Pacific gyre," as the field of mostly plastic debris is called.

While White said she expected to see large pieces of plastic litter routinely floating by their ship, they only encountered it intermittently. "We had to tow a net through the water for hours" to capture a small bowl of tiny particles of disintegrated plastic, she said.

"We certainly did see fishing gear or Styrofoam floats that would float by at irregular intervals," White added. "But we never saw mats of material."

The journey focused on studying how the plastic waste affects marine microorganisms, and the prevalence and concentration of the trash. It was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education.

White also challenges the notion that the patch is Texas-sized. It was first described as the size of the state about a decade ago, and ultimately it doubled in size in media portrayals and in pronouncement by some advocacy groups, she said.

"There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world's oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists," White said. "You can be truthful and accurate without having to hype." She said the actual field of debris, gathered together, would cover less than one percent of Texas.

Charles Moore is an oceanographer who discovered the ocean debris in North Pacific gyre in 1997 while taking a shortcut from Hawaii to California on his 50-foot catamaran. About 20 percent of ocean junk -- most of which is plastic -- is tossed overboard by ships and oil platforms. The rest comes from litter on land, carried by rivers, creeks and storm drain systems.

He agrees that depictions of an island of trash in the Pacific are overblown. "It's not something you can walk on, or see from a satellite. We've always tried to dispel that fact," said Moore, who founded Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, which focuses its work on ocean debris. He cites a graphic created by a Russian newspaper for amplifying that impression.

"The paper had a staff artist make a mountain (of ocean debris) that looked like the Matterhorn," he said. The image was then replicated, Moore added.

And many photos, which show plastics carpeting the sea surface, are also actually shot along coastlines and estuaries, and mistakenly attributed to the gyre.

But a careless portrayal by certain media organizations and advocacy groups aside, the gravity of the Pagesituation 1 of 2 isn't diminished by the absence of an easily-seen field of garbage, said Moore.Jul 30, 2015 04:34:06PM MDT http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_17037052But a careless portrayal by certain media organizations and advocacy groups aside, the gravity of the situation isn't diminished by the absence of an easily-seen field of garbage, said Moore.

Instead, by the time the plastic reaches the gyre, it's typically disintegrated into tiny pieces, creating something akin to a plastic soup of varying concentrations, he said. Fish ingest the material, and it moves up the food chain. Much of the plastic that his researchers retrieve is one to two millimeters, he said, or just a tiny fraction of an inch.

White, with Oregon State, acknowledged that they didn't capture all the plastic in the water.

"There certainly is a good deal of plastic that may have made it through the nets," she said.

Moore, whose shipmate was on White's 2008 voyage, also objects to White's challenges to the scale of the problem.

"What constitutes a garbage patch?" he asked. "Is it 1 million particles per square kilometer? Is it 300,000 particles per square kilometer? Is it 10,000? The stuff thins out as you get to the edges." And the tiny plastic detritus nonetheless extends, in varying concentrations, from Japan to California, Moore said.

White's analysis of ocean debris also cites research from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Mass. that found the amount of ocean garbage, at least in the Atlantic, hasn't increased since the mid-1980s.

Moore said that while that may be true in the Atlantic, where environmental regulations in adjacent developed countries have stemmed the flow of plastic litter, it's not the case with garbage patches in similar gyres around the world.

He said preliminary research from Algalita shows increases in plastic accumulation in the Pacific gyre, as well as similar gyres off the coasts of developing nations such as India, Chile and South Africa, where environmental regulations aren't as stringent as those in developed nations.

White asserts that "in order to be more effective advocates" for reducing plastic pollution in oceans, the best quality data on the challenge is needed.

Moore even questions that position, however.

"Everyone wants to study and stall before they do anything about it," he said. "Geez, they always finish their statements by saying 'plastic doesn't belong in the ocean.'

"Well if that's the case, let's keep it out of the ocean. We don't need to wait for any more data."

Suzanne Bohan covers science. Contact her at 510-262-2789. Follow her at Twitter.com/suzbohan.

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