<p>In 1997, a Californian man named Charles Moore was sailing home from Hawaii after competing in a boat race. On a whim, he decided to change course and head through a part of the eastern Pacific Ocean known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Known to seafarers as ‘the doldrums’, this is an area of light or no wind and little boat traffic. Its calm weather is due to a permanent column of high pressure air, which causes the ocean for hundreds of miles across to swirl slowly towards its centre.</p> <p>As Moore headed into the Gyre, he started to notice an unsettling amount of debris floating in the water. The closer he got to the centre, the more garbage there appeared to be, and the vast majority of it was obviously of human origin. In fact, most of it was discarded plastic.</p> 2009-08-11T01:14:03-04:00 great-pacific-garbage-patch 8264592 Science & Nature 2009-08-29T02:29:20-04:00 2010-02-02T22:10:07-05:00 iMinds Pty Ltd animals, damage, entangled, environmental, fleets, Gyre, Pacific Ocean, plastic, rubbish, sea, shipping In 1997, a Californian man named Charles Moore was sailing home from Hawaii after competing in a boat race. On a whim, he decided to change course and head through a part of the eastern Pacific Ocean known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Known to seafarers as ‘the doldrums’, this is an area of light or no wind and little boat traffic. Its calm weather is due to a permanent column of high pressure air, which causes the ocean for hundreds of miles across to swirl slowly towards its centre. As Moore headed into the Gyre, he started to notice an unsettling amount of debris floating in the water. The closer he got to the centre, the more garbage there appeared to be, and the vast majority of it was obviously of human origin. In fact, most of it was discarded plastic. 2009-06-30T02:53:00-04:00 manual 0 22615212 deny 0 MP3 AudioBook 1 1.69 8264592 false AUWD30900044 false 2010-02-02T22:10:17-05:00 2010-02-02T22:10:26-05:00 manual 0 32579152 deny 1 ePUB eBook 2 1.69 8264592 false 9781921746192  false 2010-02-02T22:10:26-05:00 2009-08-11T01:14:40-04:00 16891302 1 8264592 2009-08-11T01:14:40-04:00 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0032/9902/products/garbagepatch.jpg?1265170713 Format