Midway Atoll is a collection of three small islands in the North Pacific, about halfway between the U.S. and Asia, and one of the remotest places on earth. It is located near the apex of the Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling soup of millions of tons of plastic pollution. This soup of plastic pollution is practically translucent and lies just below the surface.  You can’t see it from space or via satellite, only up close, from the bow of a ship, or as you dive in.

Also known as the Pacific Gyre, the soup a slowly rotating vortex of garbage that, when it gets close land, “vomits” forth plastic detritus all over the beaches. Consequently the Midway Islands are covered with plastic garbage.

What’s worse is the plastics also act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as pesticides and hydrocarbons. Pity anything that ingests it!

Enter the Albatross

According to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals and countless fish. A myriad of plastic paraphernalia such as syringes, cigarette lighters, children’s toys and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food.

Prompted by this profound environmental tragedy of our time: the deaths by starvation of thousands of albatrosses who mistake floating plastic trash for food, five media artists, led by photographer Chris Jordan, travelled to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge to witness and record the catastrophic effect of our disposable culture on some of the world’s most beautiful and symbolic creatures.

Midway. Message from the Gyre

Do you wonder like I do: when are we going to stop drowning in plastic?

Additional information:

Video from the movie Message in the Waves.

The Synthetic Sea

Resources:

http://www.unep.org/pdf/EcosystemBiodiversity_DeepWaters_20060616.pdf

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm

http://www.apocadocs.com/cgi-bin/docdisp.cgi?tag=plastic+gyre

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

http://www.midwayjourney.com/

Written by Suze Chalmers