Our own Atlantic garbage patch?

The Great Pacific garbage patch gets all the press, but we have our own swirling sea of refuse and plastic debris - sort of. Take a boat just past the Gulf Stream off our coast and you'll enter the North Atlantic Gyre, which is quickly gaining notoriety for trashiness.

A UNCW staffer is headed out to investigate, map, and chronicle the Sargasso Sea's increasing likeness to a landfill, and you can follow her exploits here: the Plastic Ocean.

From their website:

UNCW’s Bonnie Monteleone and Jennifer O’Keefe, Director of Keep America Beautiful- New Hanover County, will represent North Carolina’s passion for the ocean by going out into the Atlantic Gyre, followed by Monteleone joining Algalita Marine Research Foundation into the North Pacific Gyre. They will be taking samples to quantify pelagic plastics found on the oceans surface, collecting surface feeding fish to necropsy for ingested plastics and bringing national awareness to the issues of man made debris entering our oceans.

No plastic bags on Outer Banks

North Carolina took an important step forward this week towards phasing out plastic bags. Sen. Josh Stein’s (D-Wake) bill - No plastic bags on Outer Banks - bans plastic bags on the Outer Banks except for some very limited uses. The NC Senate approved the measure by a vote of 49-1. It's now headed to the House.

The Outer Banks - and coastal North Carolina - provide critical habitat to many species of shore birds and sea turtles (pictured above, the critically endangered Kemps Ridley, which recently started frequenting NC beaches). Loggerhead sea turtles typically breed on Cape Hatteras, but Green sea turtles, Atlantic Ridleys, and Atlantic Hawksbill have also been spotted frequenting our shores. In the water, plastic bags mimic the appearance of jelly fish, a favorite of marine life:

It has been estimated that over a million birds and 100,000 marine animals, including mammals and turtles, die each year from plastic debris.

It's a good move by the Senate, and one that will see a lot less junk ending up in our waters. And it will cut down on wasteful, unnecessary use of petroleum.

For context: According to the Wall Street Journal, Americans use about 100 million plastic bags each year—most of which end up in landfills. Sierra Club estimates that 11 million barrels of oil are needed to produce one ton of plastic grocery bags.