the.com/great pacific garbage patch
the ocean's junk drawer, except the drawer is the size of a continent and never closes.
means a vast zone in the north pacific where ocean currents concentrate floating plastic debris instead of a solid trash island.
from named in 1997 after sailor charles moore sailed through it returning from a race and found plastic bits stretching for days, coining garbage patch to describe the diffuse soup rather than a floating landmass.
size estimateroughly triple the area of france
composition46 percent by weight is fishing nets
not visiblemostly microplastics, invisible from satellites or planes
depthdebris extends from surface to water column below
for instance
ocean cleanup project — dutch nonprofit deploying floating barriers since 2018
eastern garbage patch — the main mass between california and hawaii
western garbage patch — smaller sister patch near japan
north pacific gyre — the rotating current system that traps it all