The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (also
Pacific trash vortex and North Pacific garbage patch) is a pile of primarily
plastic waste accumulated to the size of France, floating in the northern part
of the Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and California. It covers 1.6 million square kilometres,
which originates from the Pacific Rim, including countries in Asia, North
America, and South America.
Despite
the common public perception of the patch existing as giant islands of floating
garbage, its low density prevents detection by satellite imagery, or even by
casual boaters or divers in the area. This is because the patch is widely
dispersed and consisted primarily of suspended small plastic particles.
The
Patch was discovered by Charles J. Moore, returning home through the North
Pacific Gyre after competing in the Transpacific Yacht Race in 1997.
The Trash Isles
The
Trash Isles is a major social responsibility campaign to lobby the United
Nations to acknowledge the plastic in oceans as a country, in order to force
the issue to be addressed.
The
Trash Isles identity including an official flag, currency called ‘Debris’, stamps,
and passports created from recycled materials.
A
Declaration of Independence was sent to the United Nations on 2017’s World
Ocean Day, for the United Nations to recognising the Trash Isles as a sovereign
country. Subsequently as a
member-country, the other 195 UN nations would be compelled to help clean up
the new nation per the UN’s charter.
A petition
was later launched to gather support to pressure the UN. Petition respondents are thereafter made ‘citizens’. Till the petition closed, it gained 238,762
supporters,
Actor Dame Judy Dench is Isles’ queen, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as Minister of Defence. Al Gore, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, to name a few, are honorary citizens.
To add
gravitas to the proposal, London-based designer Mario Kerkstra has created a
passport for the country. Kerkstra
worked with illustrator Jürgen Willbarth at Illustration Web to create a blue
passport with a bespoke coat of arms. Emblazoned with the slogan The Ocean
Needs Us, it features a sea lion and a turtle, holding a shield bearing an
image of a whale diving into the ocean.
Stamps
inside the passport are prints of floating plastic and fish entangled in
rubbish.
Kerkstra
also designed bank notes for the Trash Isle's Debris currency, which Tony
Wilson at Jelly London Kitchen has illustrated with images of the ocean
devastated by waste.
The 50
Debris note depicts a sea lion tangled in a web of rubbish, while an octopus
swims alongside floating waste on the 20 Debris note.
Blue
stamps costing 0.30 Debris are also included in the Trash Isles paraphernalia.
They depict birds, fish and other wildlife within a web of rubbish.
