Tracking Ocean Trash by Satellite

DoubleWhopper writes "From the "Intersting Use of Technology" file comes this article on NOAA's tracking of oceanic debris with satellites used for tracking fish. From the article, "...during three days of study, about 2,000 individual pieces of debris were seen", and, "A number were balls of net up to 30 feet across." The researchers verified the information with the aid of a NOAA aircraft and digital imaging."

Comments

Ghost Fishing

[TFGeditor]

FTA: "'One piece of driftnet that was still stretched out, and presumably still fishing, was 200-300 meters (650-975 feet) long,' Churnside said."

The article links to a NOAA article, "Ghost Fishing."

This is similar to the "ghost traps" crab trapproblem. Crabs enter abandoned crab traps. The crabs die. More crabs enter the traps to feed on the dead ones, then they die. An endless cycle.

The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has an annual Crab Trap Cleanup Day. Notices are sent out, and any crab traps still in the water during the cleanup day(s) are considered abandoned. Volunteers annually collect somewhere around 2000 traps from Texas coastal waters.

Now that we know where it is...

[breakbeatninja]

Why don't they send some crews to clean it up or notify the respective countries responsible for it to do that. I find it unnerving how much pollution there is in the form of litter, toxins in the air, land and sea and yet most of those responsible are completely apathetic because it is more monetarily efficient.

Re:Now that we know where it is...

[TurboTas]

Pretty easy to asnwer that one:

It's hard enough persuading (insert government of your choice here) to fix a problem which is in their jurisdiction.

Now try to persuade that same goverment to go clean up a floating pile of crap that can a) only be seen from space b) is currently bothering no-one and c) is probably in international waters.

I'm with you, but you're unlikely to get govt support unless the crud drifts up on your nations beaches, catches fire and belches toxic black smoke over (insert favorite dreary seaside town).

grr

[bonezed]

lets pressure the gov to clean it up