A United States environmental group tracking the debris from last year's Japan tsunami reported that the floating garbage highlights the increasing severity of ocean pollution. California-based Ocean Voyages Institute said they spotted a large quantity of debris off the coasts of Oregon and Washington State while sailing up from San Francisco in their research vessel Kaisai, which dropped anchor in the Vancouver suburb city of Richmond Wednesday. The vessel's crew documented small pieces of a dock and many debris believed to have come from the Japanese tsunami on March 11 last year, said the institute founder Mary Crowley. The debris, which included four big piers and myriad containers afloat in the Pacific, could take a toll on shipping safety. Over the years, the Kaisai crew has documented in regular expeditions the “Great Pacific Garbage Patchin”, where millions of bits of plastic were brought together by winds and currents, forging a roughly 34-million-square-km swirling vortex between Hawaii and California known as “gyre”. “Everyday, all over the Pacific basin, debris is going into the ocean. I don't know if it's possible to clean up all of it. How tragic is it to be destroying our ocean eco-system before we even understand it,” Crowley said. Crowley said the institute is working with US coastguards to study the debris and improve safety measures by informing them of the whereabouts of large debris pieces. She suggests the governments pay fishermen to collect plastic and build a factory ship in the ocean to recycle the plastic into fuel and energy. She added the United Nations should put together an emergency task force of ships to do cleanup when the debris is offshore in case of future disasters. Janine Oros Amon, Kaisai's medical officer, said it was “completely shocking” to see what was floating in the ocean– buckets, plastic containers and crates, lawn furniture and even car bumpers. “We are right on the cusp of a world where serious funds are going to be needed to be spent to clean up the ocean. We are dependent on it (the ocean). If it becomes polluted it's a dire result for the human race,” she said.
