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What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

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Well, first, let's talk about what it's not.

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It's not a floating island of trash, like a garbage dump or a landfill.

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It's also not the only patch.

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They exist all throughout the ocean,

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and the Pacific Garbage Patch just happens to be the most famous.

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Garbage patches are large areas of marine debris concentration

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that are formed by rotating ocean currents called gyres,

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kind of like big whirlpools that suck things in.

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A garbage patch is made up of tiny plastic pieces

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called microplastics that are less than five millimeters long.

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It's more like pepper flakes swirling in a soup

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than something you can skim off the surface.

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You might come across some larger items

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like plastic bottles, but it's possible

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to sail through a garbage patch and not see anything.

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And they're a big problem for the ocean and us.

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People often ask why we can't just scoop up

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all the marine debris in the ocean.

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And the answer is, unfortunately, it's just not that simple.

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The first challenge is the sheer size

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of these garbage patches.

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They're huge.

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They're constantly moving with ocean currents.

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And there's debris from the ocean's surface

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all the way down to the sea floor.

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Not to mention all the marine life we would disrupt

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if we tried to just scoop up debris.

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So what can we do?

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Well, the ultimate solution is prevention.

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And we need to keep that as our highest priority.

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We can reduce, reuse, and recycle

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to keep trash out of the ocean in the first place.

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And we can participate in things like shoreline cleanups.

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It's a lot easier to deal with debris

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before it gets to the ocean.

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Because until we stop marine debris at the source,

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we'll just be cleaning it up forever.