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Monday, March 26, 2018

What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?

Not all trash ends up at the dump. A river, sewer or beach can't catch everything the rain washes away, either.

In fact, Earth's largest landfill isn't on land at all.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches across a swath of the North Pacific Ocean, forming a nebulous, floating junk yard on the high seas.

It's the poster child for a worldwide problem: plastic that begins in human hands yet ends up in the ocean, often inside animals' stomachs or around their necks.

This marine debris has sloshed into the public spotlight lately, thanks to growing media coverage as well as expeditions by scientists and explorers hoping to see plastic pollution in action

The patch is not easily visible, because it consists of tiny pieces almost invisible to the naked eye. Most of its contents are suspended beneath the surface of the ocean,and the relatively low density of the plastic debris is, according to one scientific study, 5.1 kilograms per square kilometer of ocean area (5.1 kg/km2)

What's it made of?

A 2018 study using data from vessel and aircraft surveys, found that 79,000 tons of plastic are floating in an area spanning 1.6 million square kilometers (about 618,000 square miles). Previously, researchers believed the area was four to 16 times smaller.

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