The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N. The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.
The Patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography, since it consists primarily of suspended particulates in the upper water column. Since plastics break down to even smaller polymers, concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper water column is significantly higher than average.
Read more about Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Discovery, Formation, Sources of Pollutants, Plastic Photodegradation in The Ocean, Mass of Plastics Through Water Column, Density of Neustonic Plastics, Size and Visibility, Effect On Wildlife, Research and Cleanup, 2012 Expedition To Study Plastic Marine Pollution, Cleanup Efforts
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—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
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—Ivan Chtcheglov (b. 1934)
“I sing a hero’s head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,
Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)