How big is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
There is a floating island of trash in the Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas.
The answer
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California, covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometers, roughly three times the size of France. It contains approximately 80,000 tonnes of plastic, composed of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces. Contrary to popular imagery, most of it is not a solid mass but rather a diffuse soup of microplastics suspended in the water column, with larger items like fishing nets and debris interspersed. The patch forms because converging ocean currents in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre trap floating debris in a relatively stable area.
Source: The Ocean Cleanup
- Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- ocean pollution
- microplastics
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