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The Great Pacific Garbage Catch. Müll als Medium einer ‹Plastic Oceanography›
Summary
This article examines how floating plastic debris in the ocean has become integrated into media-technological operations within oceanographic research, serving as both a data source for mapping ocean currents and a target for technological collection systems. It traces how plastics function as interference objects that reveal the interconnected circulation systems of global oceans and globalized waste production.
The article is dedicated to a three-fold media-becoming of garbage in oceanographic research. First, it deals with attempts to condense washed-up flotsam through media operations, such as searching, identifying, classifying, or networking it into data on ocean currents. Second, it investigates computer-assisted approaches to collect and recycle accumulated debris found in «garbage patches» by means of drifting barriers. Third, it examines the tracking of sensor-reinforced buoys used to follow the dispersion of marine debris. As an effect, the oceanic interference object plastic waste is included as an element of media-technological operations that make tangible the systemically interlocking circulation of global ocean currents and globalized waste production.