Abstract

The largest gyre, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch spans 1.6 million square kilometers, or twice as much land as Texas, between Hawaii and California. It’s assessed that it contains 1.8 trillion bits of plastic, weighing right around 90,000 tons. The majority of the plastic in the gyre is the size of pepper flakes or less and has been broken down over time by the sun and waves, despite the fact that there are numerous recognizable floating objects in the gyre— macroplastics like cigarette butts, plastic bags, food containers, laundry baskets, plastic bottles, medical waste, fishing gear, and more. Numerous organizations are attempting to clean up the oceans, despite the fact that the majority of large pieces of plastic are dispersed throughout the vastness of the oceans and that the remaining pieces may be too small to collect.