The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is finally getting cleaned up — but what’s happening to all that plastic?
Story by Abby Jackson • Yesterday 6:15 AM
A relatively uncharted island entirely made of trash, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an enigma. Still, reducing its size is an even bigger mystery.
The Ocean Cleanup is an organization using high-tech tools to remove trillions of pieces of plastic pollution and other trash that make up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — but what happens to this waste once it gets collected from the ocean?
How big is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a floating vortex of debris in the North Pacific Ocean. It spans 1.6 million square kilometers (or over 600,000 square miles) from California to Japan with Hawaii in the middle.
The trash found in the GPGP varies in type and size, but the majority of it is made of plastic.
Microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic — make up only 8% of the GPGP’s total mass, but they have an outsized effect. Of the estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the GPGP, 94% are microplastics.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-is-finally-getting-cleaned-up-but-what-s-happening-to-all-that-plastic/ar-AA14kn4D?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=4670b67264e941428507a5fc1857b2a7&ei=14
