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The Pacific Trash Vortex is not a tall story. INFOGRAPHIC

The trash vortex is an area the size of Texas in the North Pacific in which an estimated six kilos of plastic for every kilo of natural plankton, along with other slow degrading garbage, swirls slowly around like a clock, choked with dead fish, marine mammals, and birds who get snared. Some plastics in the gyre will not break down in the lifetimes of the grandchildren of the people who threw them away. Maybe some solutions are growing

You don’t really understand? Click on the infographic and read!
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Great Pacific Garbage Patch 2017The patch is created in the gyre of the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone.

Theย Great Pacific garbage patchย (alsoย Pacific trash vortex) is aย garbage patch, aย gyreย ofย marine debrisย particles, in the central Northย Pacific Ocean. It is located roughly fromย 135ยฐWย toย 155ยฐWย andย 35ยฐNย toย 42ยฐN.ย The collection of plastic and floating trash originates from theย Pacific Rim, including countries inย Asia,ย North America, andย South America.ย The gyre is divided into two areas, the “Eastern Garbage Patch” fromย Californiaย toย Hawaii, and the “Western Garbage Patch” extending from Hawaii toย Japan.

Despite the common public perception of the patch existing as giant islands of floating garbage, its low density (4 particles per cubic metre (3.1/cuย yd)) prevents detection byย satellite imagery, or even by casual boaters or divers in the area. This is because the patch is a widely dispersed area consisting primarily of suspended “fingernail-sized or smaller”โ€”often microscopicโ€”particles in the upperย water columnย known asย microplastics.ย Researchers fromย The Ocean Cleanupย project claimed that the patch covers 1.6ย million square kilometres (620ย thousand square miles).ย Some of the plastic in the patch is over 50 years old, and includes items (and fragments of items) such as “plastic lighters, toothbrushes, water bottles, pens, baby bottles, cell phones, plastic bags, andย nurdles.” The small fibers of wood pulp found throughout the patch are “believed to originate from the thousands of tons of toilet paper flushed into the oceans daily.”

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