The Creatures That Thrive in the Pacific Garbage Patch

Watch the additional video I made about the sacred pact between orcas and humans that allowed them to work together to hunt off the coast of Australia: nebula.tv/videos/realscience-...
Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/realscience-...
Patreon: / realscience
Instagram: / stephaniesammann
Images Courtesy of Getty Images
Thanks to Dr. Rebecca Helm
Credits:
Narrator: Stephanie Sammann
Writer: Lorraine Boissoneault
Editor: Dylan Hennessy (www.behance.net/dylanhennessy1)
Illustrator: Jacek Ambrożewski
Illustrator/Animator: Kirtan Patel (kpatart.com/illustrations)
Animator: Mike Ridolfi (www.moboxgraphics.com/)
Sound: Graham Haerther (haerther.net)
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster ( / forgottentowel )
Producer: Brian McManus ( / realengineering )
REFERENCES
[1] www.americanoceans.org/facts/...
[2] oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/s...
[3] www.google.com/books/edition/...
[4] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[5] www.keybiscayne.fl.gov/news_d...
[6] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[7] journals.plos.org/plosbiology...
[8] link.springer.com/article/10....
[9] www.int-res.com/articles/meps...
[10] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...]
[11] www.nature.com/articles/s4155...
[12] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[13] pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021...
[14] journals.plos.org/plosbiology...
[15] www.sciencedirect.com/science...

[@cyrilio]

Based on this video it seems clear to me that it’s much better to prevent further pollution. River cleanup and preventing more plastics from getting in to nature is essential.

[@eddiebendigo7317]

Most of us didn't need a video to reach that conclusion

[@cepelinai123]

You are so clever

[@martyvimislik813]

Are you slow 😢

[@suaemp4488]

@@eddiebendigo7317 OP probably had that conclusion earlier and communicated in that commenct that now he/she is sure. there's no need for trying to boost your ego by trying to demean someone under their neutral comment. if you agree with the OP you should be happy that there are more people like you now. otherwise you can push them away from getting to the truth. unless you want to.

[@kayned47]

I know the planet is heating up faster than it ever has but surely there's animals and other life forms that will thrive on the warmer climate

[@hilestoby2628]

Before there were plastics, people would have glass bottles given to them and they would be refilled by the company for later reuse. Many of the plastic items today are from single-use items. If we gradually transition and find alternatives to plastic single use items, I think it can go a long way in reducing garbage in waterways leading to the oceans.

[@tektrixter]

The reason that single-use items are replaced reusable is that they are more profitable - corporations externalize the cost of the waste generated to the environment, governments, and public. I have found the root cause to much of the worlds problems are neoliberalism (aka Reaganomics) and corporate control of government.

[@jamesusespivot]

The problem is a culture disposability, not plastics themselves. Plastics were originally intended for use as long term reusable or durable items such as lunchboxes or telephones. A modern example would be a fridge, tough and sturdy and have a lifespan of 10-15 years; or perhaps my gaming laptop, mostly tough plastic but I don't plan on throwing it away anytime soon. In fact despite the plastic bag being invented in 1960, it wasn't used widely until after a conference in 1985 by the Society of Plastic Engineers, where a single speaker pointed out that using plastic bags would save money over paper bags. Remember that it also costs energy and pollution to make hard metal objects. For sturdy durable items intended for long term use, using plastic can actually be better for the environment than other materials. Likewise glass is an excellent material for reuse and can be recycled indefinitely, but in many countries glass goes directly to landfill and as a result glass production makes 86M tonnes of CO2 a year. Once again the problem is not glass, but a culture of disposability.

[@sk9c00]

From a medical perspective, new plastic syringes have wayy less 'psychological' chance of disease transmission vs reusable blunt glass/metal syringes....

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Let’s go back to glass wax, wood and metals. Save plastic for the medical field

[@andrebrito9337]

Glass is better for health and environment than plastic

[@kamiwriterleonardo6345]

This video is the definition of "Life, uh, finds a way." Still best to not overpollute.

[@efhi]

Liberals will say "hey it helps the animals, why stop?"

[@bluecollarmenproductions]

@@efhino…

[@thomaster8870]

@@efhi Please stop giving the gun-toting open carry nutjob televangelists any more ammunition.

[@xyrus85]

@@efhispeak for yourself

[@McChimkin123]

​@@efhi Stop linking things that have nothing to do with politics to politics. You are making yourself look bad.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

Between this, ocean farming, iron fertilization, fuel/plastics from algae, seabed mining, methane clathrate, nuclear power barges, cybertecture (seacrete/biorock) and seasteading, there is a nice oceanpunk scifi book to be written.

[@NathanDudani]

Waterworld

[@suicidalmemester23]

This is important for our culture and survival, someone get on this

[@Echo81Rumple83]

Oceanpunk? Now there's an interesting subgenre of sci-fi right next to solarpunk :3

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

@@NathanDudani I was thinking more futuristic. Like Waterworld 50-100 years in the future where prosperity has returned somewhat.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

@@Echo81Rumple83 Yeah I was thinking about if it should be a subgenre of solarpunk or not be too concerned with sustainability. It probably would be more interesting to have a solarpunk faction and a non-solarpunk faction at odds with each other. Like they are constantly fighting over whaling, seabed mining, fossil fuels etc.. Then you have corpos monopolizing space. But you can't escape the planet because of Kessler syndrome, space debris making it impractical to send anything into space. You can only send stuff down to earth in heavily armored droppods. Elon Musk's 3rd clone dropped a bunch of water rich asteroids and comets on Earth and that's why everything is under water lmao. Probably over a dispute with the SEC or something. Then you'd probably have the "landers" that try to rebuild all the continents, but with rafts. Initially they mass produce them and just let them randomly float around, which pisses off everyone else because it makes it impossible and dangerous to navigate. And then there's the transhumans trying to adapt to aquatic life by splicing their genes with whales or something. And also AI has enabled us to talk to whales and they turn out to be much smarter but less industrious than us. They just came to the conclusion that the meaning of life is literally just vibing. And it turns out they are generally just uncooperative jerks (at least the orcas), constantly messing with people they have no respect for. The whaling also doesn't help with their attitude. Then there's militant human whale activists that try to arm the whales lmao. And also after learning how to bring back mammoths, they brought back a bunch of different animals like mosasaurs and megalodons by splicing whatever fossilized proteins they could sequence into existing animals. Because why not.

[@GeoffryGifari]

I've also heard of fungus that lives on the remains of chernobyl the sheer persistence of life is amazing

[@PedroHenrique-hv4sj]

there are other animals that live in Chernobyl like dogs, deer and other small animals

[@Dandelion_Stitches]

@@PedroHenrique-hv4sj Yeah. Cancer rates and other health issues in the area's animal populations is still substantially higher than in other areas, so it's not like it's a great place for them individually. But while humans would find that sort of scenario intolerable, the relative protection of the area means net population growth for a lot of species. Not so great for birds though.

[@JadeMythriil]

@@Dandelion_Stitches cancer isn't usually a problem for animals with rather short lifespans, especially prey animals that might get eaten by predators within a year after they're born. Its only generally a problem for longer living creatures like humans who end up building up a high amount of cancer cells that would become a problem later in life.

[@MattttG3]

Don’t forget! Fungi are like humans; they actually “breathe “ in oxygen whereas all of plants “breathe” in carbon dioxide 😊 Fungi is a class of their own. Without them, we wouldn’t have had a chance to exist

[@AnEagle]

@@Dandelion_Stitches If I'm not wrong, I think Chernobyl is actually quite good for animals, as the cancer rarely effects them, and the absence of humans just let them be alone

[@Jumper1155]

I just want to tell you that you are an incredible inspiration. You are among the first people that come to my mind when I think of why I'm going into biology starting this year. You showed me what a deep appreciation of nature is and how theres awesome things to be found even in the outwardly most mundane or boring animals and plants. Your content is amongst the best on the entire platform, I love your narration style and formatting and I can always relax and just enjoy the experience when opening one of your videos. Please never stop.

[@tryagaintmrw]

Beautifully said

[@LzSAUCY]

Legendary comment , starting marine biology/zoology this year !

[@anopoabednego6173]

Shut up.

[@GillBearToe]

Just remember pay is 40k with a biology degree

[@realscience]

This is like the nicest thing anyone has ever said ❤

[@--Paws--]

The irony of that bacteria being mass reproduced is the potential takeover of that specific bacteria; an outbreak of it might be a hinderance to somethings people need plastic for. It might also out grow its trait of eating/digesting plastic and become something else instead.

[@deauthorsadeptus6920]

In past we thought about "grey goo" apocalypse. Now we have a possibility to witness what happens when you have plastic eating antibiotic resistant bacteria in a world where plastic is everywhere and antibiotics are main line of defence.

[@SirNuk3]

plastic rust

[@theguyfromsaturn]

My guess is that it will be a hinderance to tech, but should not be an apocalyptic scenario. Remember, there was once a time when lignin could not be digested by bacteria. That's how we ended up with coal. But then bacteria developped the ability to digest it. It did not result in an ecological disaster. I expect this to go the same way.

[@marcopohl4875]

definitly takes more research

[@eduardobarreto5555]

Worst case scenario we'll have to abandon plastic and go back to stuff like wood, cardboard, metal, glass and ceramics. Economically devastating but not insurmountable.@@theguyfromsaturn

[@InsufficientYarsago]

This reminds me alot of the game "RainWorld", ancient civilization went extinct and now plants and animals evolved to their trash and abandoned mechanical environment. Very cool concept.

[@kittycatdays8719]

wonderful game with an intricate ecosystem

[@InsufficientYarsago]

@@kittycatdays8719 indeed

[@diegop118]

Thats exactly what i was thinking

[@grasseater123]

why do people keep making the games name 1 word

[@aaamogusthespiderever2566]

Leviathans are biomechanical monsters that uh just take one chomp and ur dead

[@luckyotter623]

It's really incredible how life finds ways to adapt, no matter how adverse we may think their environment is.

[@whynotfrancis]

kind of like the creatures living in/around hydrothermal vents- its an environment that seems completely hostile to life, yet there’s an entire ecosystem

[@ubutlesslame]

Petition to collectively call these creatures the Garbage Patch Kids

[@js66613]

Here's the thing though: 1) The plastic wasn't there in the first place, we dragged it in there and it is still very much a threat to so many organisms including ourselves. 2) Microplastics are the main problem, them and their ability to accumulate in tissues. And while it's encouraging that /some/ life is adapting, we can't just rely on that. We /still/ need to move on from plastic because of the many animals that won't adapt, and those who have adapted? Well they were already adapted to a similar lifestyle and had a similar lifestyle. These animals were always there, they didn't just suddenly appear with the plastic. Evolution and adaptation takes time -- this didn't just happen the moment plastic appeared and our waste hasn't been around that long, being that we haven't been around that long and the industrial era didn't kick off that long ago. The optimism is nice, but let's not try to minimize the issue of plastic pollution.

[@nafsulmuthmainnah4475]

you got it right the idea of giving up kinda crazy to me

[@duudsuufd]

I think plastic enters the ocean faster than we can clean it up. Cleaning up must continue.

[@thecakecraft7724]

I just do not understand why we’re treating making garbage and then cleaning a fraction of a fraction of it up as the solution. Yet even bringing up the idea of “what if we stopped companies from making everything plastic and disposable?” invites accusations of being against modern progress and economic efficiency. But are company’s profits really worth all.. THIS? Would it really kill us to use paper bags instead of plastic?

[@EatyourWafflesplease]

except even then it's not that simple, considering paper is primarily made from trees, and deforestation is (of course) also a massive environmental issue. not that we're completely doomed, or that there's no other way - it'll just take a lot of careful navigation and radical change.

[@g0ld3sun]

If all else fails, hopefully evolution amongst the garbage patch denizens leads to a species that can consume and mitigate the patches one day.

[@silent_stalker3687]

There are already species that do that However we are yet to find a species to handle eco-friendly paper straws. Yes. Those are more toxic and less degradable than these, and worse than the paper bags we replaced with the plastic bags. Yes. Our ‘green government’ followed the science and replaced paper bags with plastic bags. Then replaced plastic bags with something worse.

[@joshtompkins1538]

There are actually already already some varieties of marine bacteria that can metabolize types of plastics.

[@rinrin4711]

That would be terrible. Imagine world where bacteria eat plastics like nothing.

[@Broniath]

@@rinrin4711Hopefully by then we wont be as reliant on them.

[@stevenkunkle3857]

​@@Broniathimagine these bacteria getting into a supermarket or hospital. It would be chaos.

[@joeis18]

I did not believe the blue sea dragon was a real animal until now.

[@jurian0101]

Hi, rather than CO2, the gas bladder of Portuguese man o’ war uses *carbon monoxide* instead. Kind of a result of CO2 being much soluble in water, a property some chemistry demos use to make a color-changing fountain.

[@GeoffryGifari]

do you think these creatures can eventually support a complex ecosystem, with larger animals?

[@KrazyKaiser]

Given enough time, yes. But it probably takes AT LEAST a few centuries for the food web to develop to that degree, if not millennia.

[@GeoffryGifari]

@@KrazyKaiser if the garbage patch (and humanity) remain until that time, i imagine we'll face an even greater dilemma

[@svenwiberg2563]

@@GeoffryGifari Atleast now with this new info I can start flush my plastic in the toilet

[@rahn45]

I think the biodiversity of the garbage patches has been understated due to the focus of "These things were here before, and plastics are simply intruding into their space." The two big things that the plastic does for the life out there is two fold: A surface and shade, this allows for a lot of life to exist out in the middle of the ocean that otherwise becomes impossible. The shade actually attracts fish to area, and when you have fish you things that hunt the fish and you go from there.

[@GeoffryGifari]

@@rahn45 do you think plastic's resemblance to jellyfish can be beneficial to the jellyfish?

[@katherinegilks3880]

It is interesting that we tend to focus on animals like sea turtles who are eating plastic instead of jellyfish (which is indeed a bad thing), but not the jellyfish themselves. I agree with Dr. Helm’s assessment.

[@deplizz7859]

because jellyfish are everywhere and near unaffected by what we have done

[@blankityblankblank2321]

Life...uh...finds a way

[@MrSlanderer]

Found a blue sea dragon washed up on the beach one day. As small as it is, its colors were absolutely mesmerizing. I took it back into the water, and watched it get taken away by the tide. Only recently did I discover that they sting, though my encounter was without such an experience. Yes, it was still alive when I put it back in the water.

[@duudsuufd]

Maybe they 'sting' if they have recent venom on their skin from their pray.

[@dudenamedchris3325]

Not too relevant, but I'm perplexed by the word "neuston". Supposedly derives from the Greek word "neustos" which supposedly means swimming, but I couldn't find anything on the word other than the Wikipedia article on neustons, which I don't really trust. I'm Greek, and even though I wasn't a very good student, I expected the word to derive from "nostos", "νόστος", which means "the return to one's home/country". This word is most often used when describing Odysseus' struggle to return to his home island after the Iliad, which he mainly did by boat. So I imagined the similarity of the sailing creatures like man-o-wars and Odysseus's sailing inspired the scientists who discovered these creatures.

[@bazoo513]

Prof. Helm's enthusiasm for the topic of her study is practically palpable. Excellent choice of participant, Stephanie! And, of course, congratulations on yet another marvelous video with the moral "it's not that simple"... 😀

[@visavo]

this is most definitely, my favorite KZbin Channel!! Thank you Guys

[@blahthebiste7924]

That Blue Dragon is 100% a pokemon

[@Myron90]

I can't fathom living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and being unable to swim

[@AnimalChannel-np1uh]

If it wasn't for all the microplastics and all the sea creatures eating it I would say leave it, but I think it is much better to remove it and let nature recover.

[@mmgibson1]

I found this video to be totally fascinating - as a person who did a lot of open ocean voyaging aboard a sailing research vessel back in the mid-1980's I am familiar with the wonders of marine life, but this is something that I have never seen. Even back then we were concerned about the effect of plastics and we kept a log of everything we saw, but it was mostly large things like bags, containers, and floating fishing gear. The trash problem has increased exponentially since then. I also recall seeing Portuguese Man of Wars in the water, and their "sails" are deceptively beautiful and iridescent. I was always glad I was safe up on the deck - those long tentacles can drift in the current and get you even though you think you're far enough away.

[@BodyMusicification]

Blue Sea Dragons might be my new favorite animal. They're so beautiful! 🥰🥰

[@jessicahay9305]

And so dangerous

[@nuclearocean]

"An entire class of organisms lives their entire lives among the trash" Yeah, we know. Redditors and twitter (X) users

[@cyphatechie5459]

i really love rebbeca helm's charisma as she talks about the organisms

[@sohopedeco]

As the song says "life in plastic, it's fantastic".

[@Matty002]

this is crazy. saying we should leave the plastic is like saying we should leave radioactive matter to spread in an ecosystem that is connected to food we eat. if the animals were surviving with a large decrease in natural floating debris, they will survive if a fraction of the plastic is cleaned up. people arguing about deciding to do something instead of actually doing something is why the planet is heating up and animals keep going extinct

[@gerritvalkering1068]

This is probably going to sound incredibly human-centric. We should consider first and foremost what would be best for us. Which means being very careful of changing the ecosystems we're part of. We know that the oceans as they had been up to now are incredibly beneficial, or at least relatively beneficial, for us. We don't know if oceans + our trash will be as beneficial to us. Logically, we should be wary of changing the status quo in the ecosystem when we can't predict the results

[@TheOmegaXicor]

That is traditional stupidity, we know we have survived thousands of years without farming, logically we should not plant grains and stay a hunter gatherer species. We know that slavery was incredibly beneficial, or at least relatively beneficial, for us, we don't know if our society-slavery will be as beneficial to us, logically we should maintain slavery. I'm not suggesting plastic in the ocean is good, I'm all for cleaning up and aiming for our impact on the planet to be zero, but just that is a bad argument for setting policies.

[@mishiwishu7823]

@@TheOmegaXicorSlavery is the antithesis of “best for humanity”??? Unless you exclude the slaves from your definition of humanity, which is… yikes. And I don’t even know where you were going with your first point.

[@Kaienhere]

This video was surprisingly motivating

[@--Paws--]

Wow, Rebecca finally featured in a video with her favorite creature.

[@GeoffryGifari]

once again life, uh, finds a way

[@avishekchakraborty8289]

I have never looked at biology and related nature studies the way i used to before i started seeing your videos since last year, truly inspiring work!

[@Mondythecat]

I could listen to you reading a Dictionary and I would still be very content. You are a very good journalist, film maker, naturalist and narrator.

[@isaacwilliaiii843]

This is the second video I watch from your channel, it's another banger as well as the cane toad ones.

[@dhruvgoel411]

The first priority should be to stop further plastic from entering oceans and the second should be to clean up as much harmful waste as possible. Life is adaptable but that doesn't mean we 'give up ownership' of the trash we create. A person can adapt to living on trash as well, that doesn't mean he should.

[@stargateMimhi]

Orcas are attacking boats because they think it's fun, it's a sport for them. Not because of some abstract concept like revenge.

[@marcosmackie]

I'm far from convinced that this channel should be called 'real science'

[@dr.heidiwichmann4457]

I have to compliment you for your amazing work :)

[@bobbystrong6849]

Something I noticed when watching videos on the Ocean Interceptors, the river-cleaning robots. Along with all the trash they remove, they also remove a large amount of natural organic matter that would create resources for many animals in the open ocean.

[@aliceballagh304]

I've been to the Eden Whale Museum...it was great. This video has opened my eyes about cleaning up the great Pacific garbage patch. Can you do a video about the bacteria that eat plastic? Ta!

[@lilchipps999]

I want you to know that I love your channel so so much. All the videos are so professional and I can tell how much you love what you are talking about. Keep talking about our beautiful sea.

[@xandrewvondiue522]

I love this. Seeing more of the web that makes it inappropriate to simplify things into a yes or no question - such as whether to remove all plastic in the oceans or not - just puts us one step closer to a more holistic and sustainable way of understanding everything

[@anactualfingbottleofranch747]

I think it's preposterous to even consider not cleaning up the trash in the ocean, overall it's harmful and needs to be removed, although it's cool that life can adapt to live there

[@efhi]

In a neoliberal society it will only be used to halt all efforts

[@benjaelee]

I never knew there was such nuance to ocean trash

[@helloworld983]

Once again proved that "Life always finds a way to thrive".

[@DiveHard]

This is just so interesting and well done. Thank you 🙏🏽 🤙🏽

[@CountCocofang]

This just shows how its ludicrous for humans to intentionally intervene with the environment. We have absolutely no concept about how incredibly complex it all is and how seemingly unrelated things can be tightly entwined. It's an ever present butterfly effect that we cannot hope to comprehend. As such the priority should always be to preemptively prevent the impact of human activity instead of trying to mitigate things after the fact. Because at that point we truly don't know anymore what we are even doing. But that's just the repeating cycle of humanities history. It's always "act first, understand later, scramble to fix, break even more through fixing". It's a pattern as old as humans.

[@steverodgers333]

Love your channel and your stories.

[@jensenthegreen6780]

They already have an ecosystem outside of the garbage patch, Just get rid of the trash entirely for the betterment of the rest.

[@tommyvictorbuch6960]

Leaving the trash, and just let the problem grow, isn't an option. It has to be removed.

[@EFJ56]

I saw one of those Velella velella strandings once on a beach in Melbourne! It's stuck with me ever since. That surreal scene under a perfect starry sky, the still air, the calm ocean stretching into darkness... and that thick mass of blue jellies, all rotting together around crisp packets and beer cans on the sand. It felt like the whole world had stopped to say, "Look at this-- look at all this death and decay. This is what you're doing to the world, this is what you can expect."

[@shinhikaru]

Hearing that there are living organisms that thrive in places filled with plastics is both fascinating and also terrifying. Life is literally finding a way.

[@Coltsfantp]

Yes ! Her voice is so amazing. I can watch these all day!

[@HShango]

I agree, her voice is soothing to the 👂🏿

[@szymonbaranowski8184]

you are weird

[@AdaptorLive]

Such an interesting topic and such a comprehensive take on it. You outdid yourself with this one.

[@Chickencluts1234]

I really loved the way you guys cleaned up the ocean!!!

[@Frank-ie8dh]

Everyone talks about cleaning up, but no one seems to be changing how they live to me.

[@eventhorizon7267]

I'm a undergraduate biosystems engineering student and one of my latest research ideas were plastic and biodegradable plastics , but now I wonder 🤔🤔🤔 this is a really interesting thing to concider

[@tinytortoise1296]

The thing is, all these species that live in the plastic didn't live in the plastic before because there was not plastic, so removing it seems fine to me

[@franciscomoraes8464]

13:50

[@pandap4ntz]

Absolutely fascinating video, thank you so much opening my eyes to this info that is not being talked about. I watch a lot of environmental videos, and I'm a marine life nut, and this is my first time hearing about all the critters living amongst the plastic. What a case of "you're not looking closely enough."

[@phoenix__rose394]

"metric F ton" I love it

[@tuberroot1112]

I really appreciate the objective commentary. At least I feel like we are getting an objective assessment of the issue and the counter arguments to the instinctive desire to just "clean up our mess" instead of some moralistic ecological preaching service. Very good video. I think there is some confusing with the basin wide gyres which are caused by ("ficticious") corelolis forces and tidal nodes "amphidromic points". There are areas of the large oceans where there are ZERO or negligible tides. There is one between Hawaii and California and another in the N. Atl. area you mentioned. I had read that these were the areas where garbage tended to accumulate. Also thanks for busting the idea that these are thick carpets of plastic waste, which is the erroneous popular percpetion. Nice work.

[@brigidtheirish]

I appreciate that, too. Though I do have to wonder why no one seems to have suggested that the reason only 1% of the estimated plastic has been found is because the estimate might be *wrong.*

[@rahn45]

It's a question few people even bother to ask themselves: "Is there an upside?" The answer was obviously a yes, though the rule of cute will override most people's critical analysis of the situation. If something negatively impacts a small group of something that's perceived as cute, it will not matter if it positively impacts the vast majority. Something that's not really covered in this video is how the garbage patch creates oasises in the middle of the desert of the ocean. While having a surface for eggs of sea slugs is a bonus for the sea slugs specifically, that surface is valuable to a wide variety of life. It also provides shelter from the sun as well, allowing other creatures that are incapable of diving deep to avoid solar radiation to exist on the water's surface layer. Keep in mind, we only know that there's life on these garbage patches because those people who were cleaning it up collected so much of it that they couldn't ignore it, and even then it's downplayed as to how much life they've killed in their effort to clean up the trash for obvious reasons: It's bad optics. One man's garbage is another man's treasure, and in the case of our plastics in the ocean, more and more it's looking like our garbage is the foundation for an entire ecosystem that increases the biomass and biodiversity in the middle of the ocean.

[@xxXKillTheRedsXxx]

"oh no, I left a bunch of trash on the floor, now a bunch of things are living in it, I don't recognize some of them, let's study before we clean!"

[@nathanieladams8377]

Love this channel - so informationally dense and the interviews with professionals in the field really improve credibility. Although I will say the bit about the orcas “being tired of our shit” is pretty disingenuous; they’re social creatures and have never shown real aggression towards humans

[@storieswithdon786]

Except for the recent attacks on our boats. They are tired of our shit.

[@debbiehenri345]

I think they have been attacking boats in a particular area off the coast of Spain. As far as I remember, it was only one particular pod; I haven't come across any information to suggest the habit of 'attacking humans' is spreading from one pod to another. I would imagine these attacks come as a result from that particular pod being attacked by humans at some point in the past, or the Orcas within it have observed humans taking an unreasonable amount of prey from the sea (but I favour the first point as being the most likely). Orcas are not just social creatures, as you mentioned, they are (as I'm sure you would agree) incredibly intelligent, and if they were a land animal - would be giving us apes a run for our money! I don't think they would attack humans for no good reason. At some point, one of their own has been hurt, or killed, or a boatload of Spanish fishermen have tried to drive the pod away from their favourite fishing grounds. (There are a few videos on this platform showing fishermen being exceptionally and unnecessarily cruel to sea creatures. There is a deeply unpleasant one of Asians brutally attacking Giant Mantas). ...To demonstrate the possibility of sea animals holding 'grudges:' Some time ago, I read an old book written by an American author (forget his name now), who undertook a motorbike journey through a mostly uninhabited region of Baja California to see the Grey Whales. At that time, Grey Whales were known to be aggressive, and had frequently attacked boats of all types. They had even killed a number of humans (and did indeed kill the author's guide at a later date). The author himself suggested that this behaviour was in response to whaling activities, which had ceased not long before. Nowadays, Grey Whales are much calmer in the presence of human vessels and have been known to appeal for their help if a member of their school is caught in nets, etc. So they have obviously come to understand that we no longer hunt them and are more likely to help instead.

[@rhabdob3895]

Are you serious? This boat smashing aggression counts.

[@rhabdob3895]

@@debbiehenri345 intelligence is correlated to violence. Animals aren’t peaceful and wise. They’re hungry and enjoy beating up weaker things. Like us.

[@JariDawnchild]

There have been studies that show Orcas follow trends and fads of their own make. I came across something a while back discussing how one member of a pod was swimming with a fish on its head and over the next several months, most of the rest of the pod was doing it before they lost interest. There's a possibility that going after boats may be another fad, but there seems to be no real consensus on how certain experts are on that.

[@theholypeanut8193]

Meanwhile in the Atlantic Garbage patch lives British people.

[@entengummitiger1576]

That giant island of trash is a tragedy

[@Ag3nt0fCha0s]

As an Englishman these comments made me smile. Then cry.

[@Merennulli]

Always glad to see approaches that realize if something is important, it's important enough to think before acting. We have seen far too many disasters created by people who claim to care about the environment but refuse to do the hard work of researching first. And kneejerk anti-plastic movements that don't consider what the damage their removal demands will cause are currently among the worst that I know of. (Roughly on par with the anti-nuclear ignorance squad in Germany that got new coal plants brought online directly due to their efforts.)

[@anactualfingbottleofranch747]

That's incredibly ignorant of you to compare anti-nuclear people to anti-plastic people. Removing plastic is overall a positive thing, especially ghost gear and preventing microplastics from being released. The fact that you called them knee-jerk is astounding

[@tesladrew2608]

​@@anactualfingbottleofranch747if the shoe fits

[@Jester123ish]

Makes sense, a bunch of creatures that can't swim end up in the same place as the rubbish, which also must necessarily go where the wind and currents take it.

[@kimpeater1]

When proper trees first came on the scene during the Carboniferous Period, trees would die and just lay there for millions of years before life evolved to break it down. Something similar will probably occur with plastic. It is still carbon after all, and life can use carbon for many things.

[@suruxstrawde8322]

It is in fact already happening, animals and bacteria are being found that digest simpler plastic types. Difference is that there’s hundreds more types of plastics than there are tree cellulose arrangements. But evolution will move as fast as extinctions do, so the more destruction humanity causes without fully wiping out ecosystems, the faster we’ll see equal responses from nature.

[@eljanrimsa5843]

@@suruxstrawde8322 That's wishful thinking. Usually the extinction happens first, then in the next millions of years evolution pops up with new ideas that take advantage of the new resources

[@Nova_Jan]

@@suruxstrawde8322 it at minimum takes eons for these thing to happen, you all forget how long these things will take. The problem is humanity lasting long enough in our current iteration. A massive die off of our species is when things would be able to stabilize.

[@uningenieromas]

I agree with you. The same thing happened with oxygen, at first a waste material. Life finds a way.

[@mojofier1909]

"Pacific Garbage Patch", that's the first I've ever heard of that... (also sounds funny to me). Ty for upload!

[@brady1045]

It’s a colloquial term for New Zealand

[@youtubebannedme]

​@@brady1045nah, you foul for that, you either an aussie or a new zealander, because no way in hell any non australian think about NZ randomly😂

[@brady1045]

@@youtubebannedme lol I’m american

[@youtubebannedme]

@@brady1045 nuh uh, have a g'day tho m8

[@mojofier1909]

@@brady1045 Nooooo! I moved to and lived in NZ for 4~ years before coming to AUS back in 2001. I will always have a soft spot for my Auckland homies :>

[@avishekchakraborty8289]

from the title and thumbnail i felt this might my new favourite real science video

[@Infinitum-0]

Every time I watch this exquisite channel I am staggered by the sheer bizarrity of natural life; especially in the oceans. It seems nature is hellbent on filling every niche it can to the max with endless variety. Though the problems presented here forgo one simple conclusion: that the root of the issue is not the cleaning or not of plastics, but the industries which produce them in the first place. Yet; good luck changing that...

[@rhabdob3895]

This reminded me 😂of the Great Lakes zebra mussel explosion in the… uhhhhmmmm… 80s? They covered every surface under the water line. They were little black razor blades. What happened was they filtered the green water of lake st. Clair into crystalline Lake Superior type water. The sun loving weeds grew along the surface from the shore out to 10ft of water. I forgot how they got rid of them.

[@dominoot2652]

If I so humbly may ask, if when you list your sources in the description, if you could label them with a title, topic, or mayyybe a time stamp. I do really like that in the video, the source is always shown in the corner. I absolutely love that these videos peak my curiosity and send me down new rabbit holes of information. Appreciate you all :)))

[@accelerateforsuccess987]

this is one of the topics rarely explored anywhere else, and a clear example why this channel is a true gem on this platform. Your work and production is of top quality, and your knowlege is formidable

[@keileyk8507]

I think we should still clean up as much of it as possible because even if those organisms strive on the garbage there is still more than enough out there for them to do so but by cleaning up most of it we do preserve the other species that suffer from it as well. We can't rid the ocean of all our trash but we can do everything in our might to remove as much of it as possible.

[@wrngholeonichan]

For all y’all saying ban plastics just know that most trash killing animals in the sea is from commercial fishing. Straws for instance makes up less than 1% of ocean trash.

[@szymonbaranowski8184]

gay polar bears beg to differ

[@eran3161]

Which doesn't change anything about it being a good thing to reduce single use plastics...

[@wrngholeonichan]

@@eran3161 Europe and North America make up such a small percentage of ocean trash. Unless you can get china and India to stop polluting too it’ll only be a token gesture to make suburban moms and low T men feel better about themselves.

[@nk361]

Collect the plastic and replace it with wood. Toss wood out into the ocean as a preservation effort. I can only imagine the massive collection of wood and logs back when most land was covered with trees instead of concrete buildings.

[@ontoya1]

I feel like if you give this guy an octopus brain and/or you wait a couple of million years then we might actually have a sea creature that could achieve opposability and intelligence enough to use that opposability to create technology

[@patriciastevens9185]

You've Earned My Respect

[@Elemarth]

This is actually really good. I didn't know about almost an yof this.

[@villager736]

Now this is great speculative biology material right here

[@RemiliaVampire]

You inspired me to go back to school! I'll be in year two in september! Keep it up!!

[@laggypirates]

The music at the beginning of these videos goes so hard.

[@Unkn0wn1133]

there is huge patches floating, you could see it on google maps but theyre blurred now

[@MrJayb76]

looking forward to my plastic bottle being another's sealife mansion.

[@nathanhall6151]

Not sure you can say we shouldn’t clean the millions of tonnes out of the ocean because a sea slug and some jellyfish happen to live amongst it

[@nj1255]

I believe the most important thing for us is to prevent new plastic entering the oceans. How to do that is the question.

[@moartems5076]

Oh, didnt expect my view of the ocean cleanup project to get even worse.

[@gongboom]

I live on the island of Curaçao and go swimming all the time. Last monday the sea currents were coming from the wrong direction. As I entered the sea I noticed many small yellyfish of the most beautiful blue color in the water. They have a perfectly circular almost metallic silver or gold colored body and a fringe of short tentacles of a striking blue color. They are around 2 to 3 cm big. Turns out these are Blue Button yellyfish. I had never seen an animal as bizarre and pretty. At first I thought these were man-made objects or perhaps the eggs of some yellyfish. I scooped one up in my hands and put it on the beach. Its tentacles would easily detach from the body. Where the sea would normally be clean, there was a lot of garbage floating on the surface. Bits of plastic, algae, plants, wood, seeds and more. It was funny to see how a type of barnacle established a perfecly balanced colony along the edges of a plastic insole of a discarded shoe. I found a strange floating object. I couldn't make out whether it was a piece of wood or plastic. It turned out to be a piece of ambergris. Never had I imagined I would find such a thing. Ambergris comes from the digestive system of sperm whales. It is used in luxury perfumes and is very valuable. I have made a one minute video about the blue button yellyfish and ambergris I found. You can find it on my channel.

[@GeoffryGifari]

its mentioned that neustons rely on their flotation organs to stay in the right habitat. Does plastic play a similar role, instead of growing their own floaters, they just hitch on the plastic?

[@generaltomoto]

Please make more videos about whales, love ur content ❤

[@Nekoyashiki-san]

Thanks for the video.

[@paigemalloy4276]

Marine organisms are endlessly fascinating ❤ This video is very bittersweet. . .

[@pkz420]

The way we think of ocean garbage patches is not "kind of wrong". The patches are "kind of wrong", and thinking of them as a blight on the ocean is "all correct". It does not matter if some life has adapted to the pollution, that does not make pollution a good thing or even acceptable.

[@Apotheosis_44]

Wood was non-biodegradable for millions of years, so I guess trees were bigger polluters than humans are now.

[@cronaman3196]

Im going to be super technical evem tho I agree... Actually there is no right or wrong way to do it. Life contantally evolves and adapts to its enviorment, its a force we have no control over and we dont k ow what controls it but it always works. I dont like trash in the ocean but the universe doesnt care about this planet or any of the life on it. Time is non existant to the universe and everything is so little to it. There is no right or wrong way to do anything, in the entier universe. Love it or hate it, thats just how things are. What matters and what should be done is up to us individually. Everything is survival and we try to die for what we stood for, for alot of people thats saving this planet thats going to burn fall into the sun anyways. I guess i would think its a shame to waist it now because thatd be ruining potential for the future but also, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesnt matter what is alive or dead, good or bad. Go to 17:38 and maybe re evaluate everything you just said about the video? 😅

[@anthempt3edits]

She is not talking about whether or not polluting is wrong, she’s saying the way we think about cleaning it up is ‘kind of wrong’ and we need to be careful about cleaning it without also removing tons of Neuston from the ocean environment.

[@user-ti5rb1mx5x]

Virtue signaling noted

[@cronaman3196]

@@anthempt3edits you someone who actually payed attention the video

[@charlesemans419]

BOOM! My mind expanded. Thank you for that. Now I will have something interesting to discuss.

[@APOKOLYPES]

just glad that in Seattle we are now getting paper straws in plastic wrapper for my drinks in plastic cups deliverd in paper bags that melt since plastic ones cost extra $0.08

[@elonmadetwitterracist]

another reminder of: WHAT HAVE WE DONE? 😢 thank u so much for teaching the world with another masterpiece ❤