Plastic soup
An island has emerged in the Pacific Ocean from about 79,000,000 kilograms of garbage that floats together. It concerns an area that is 3 times the size of France! This plastic collection in the sea was first called the plastic soup.
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Who discovered the plastic soup?
In 1997, ocean scientist Charles Moore sailed from Hawaii to Southern California, taking a different route than usual. It passed through a "gyre" in the North Pacific Ocean, as you can see in the picture below. A "gyre" is a large circular motion of the sea water caused by the rotation of the earth in combination with certain ocean currents You can compare it with a tornado under water: a gyre has the same rotating movement and the suction force pulls the floating plastic towards itself.
Charles saw pieces of plastic floating past here every day. He went on an investigation and discovered that a larger amount of plastic floated in this place than in other places in the Pacific Ocean. He also saw that the plastic here not only floated on the water, but also floated under water. Charles called this discovery the "plastic soup", a word that is still known around the world today.
The North Pacific Gyre is where Charles Moore discovered and described the plastic soup. Source: Fangz
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