Garbage Patches and Tide Notes. (1)

How Tides Are Related
to Garbage Patches.

By: Julia Weist

Imagine just looking for a good snack but it turns out it’s you death meal.
According to p​ ewtrusts.org​ “​ It is estimated that up to 13 million metric tons of plastic
ends up in the ocean every year.”​ Now just imagine, you’re a turtle and looking for a
meal but no, it’s just a plastic bag. According to ​conserveturtles.org

“Over 1 million marine animals (including mammals, fish, sharks, turtles, and
birds) are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean. T​ here are so many ways
that plastic can end up in our ocean and create garbage patches, but the main one
is…….TIDES!!!

Tides are related to garbage patches because when people set up all of their
belongings on the beach they might not know the tidal range of the day. The tides could
be a neap tide when there is little to no difference or the tides could be a spring tide
when there is a vast difference between high and low tide. When they don’t know the
tidal range they could put their stuff down, and when they leave to go into the ocean or
take a walk or whatever they may be doing the tide can scoop up all of their belongings,
an bring it into the ocean, where from there the currents take place to swirl all of the
garbage together to form garbage patches.

​According to ​GeoLounge.com​ “O​ cean garbage patches are concentrations of
marine debris located in the North Pacific Ocean. These garbage patches are
comprised of many different kinds of materials and, although they are located in the
same region, often change shape and form because of the influence of tides and other
climate factors.” (Paragraph 1, p.g 1, by Borneman) T​ ides are not the only fragment that
relate to garbage patches, they bring the trash into the ocean then the tides take over
and push them together to form patches.

The worse garbage patches are in high populated beaches. ​The most influential
beaches are making garbage patches worse because since they have more people at
the beaches that means more trash left behind. Therefore tides can transport more
trash into the ocean. The majority of the garbage patches are in the North Pacific ocean
near California.

According u​ satoday.com​ “​The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of
plastic, floating trash halfway between Hawaii and California, has grown to more than
600,000 square miles, a study found. That's twice the size of Texas.” (Paragraph 2, p.g
1, by Rice) ​Because of the more populated beaches leaving more and more trash
behind, the tides are bringing in more and more trash into the ocean cause the largest
garbage patches to form in the Great Pacific ocean.

In conclusion, tides are related to garbage patches and there is nothing we can
do about the tides. All we can do is pick up our trash on the beach to try to limit the
amount that will get pulled into the ocean.