September 2, 2014 — One of our planet’s most appalling eyesores — and significant environmental problems — is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling collection of mostly plastic trash and smaller particles of decomposing debris dumped by humans. Now, according to a newly published study in the journal Chaos by University of New South Wales, researchers have developed a computer model to help figure out where all that the trash is coming from.
The results are a bit startling.
“In some cases, you can have a country far away from a garbage patch that’s unexpectedly contributing directly to the patch,” said Gary Froyland, a mathematician at UNSW.
Trash that originates in Madagascar and Mozambique, two nations that border the Indian Ocean, most likely flows into the south Atlantic Ocean, according the the model. The researchers also may be able to estimate how long it takes trash from Australia, for example, to drift into the northern Pacific.
Read the full story at Discovery News