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  • What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

  • Well first, let’s talk about what it’s not. It’s not a floating island of trash,

  • like a garbage dump or a landfill. It’s also not the only patch. They exist all throughout the ocean,

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

  • Garbage patches are large areas of marine debris concentration that are formed by rotating

  • ocean currents called gyres - kind of like big whirlpools that suck things in.

  • A garbage patch is made up of tiny plastic pieces calledmicroplasticsthat are less than 5 millimeters long.

  • It’s more like pepper flakes swirling in a soup than something you can skim off the surface.

  • You might come across some larger items, like plastic bottles, but it’s possible

  • to sail through a garbage patch and not see anything.

  • And theyre a big problem, for the ocean - and us.

  • People often ask why we can’t just scoop up all the marine debris in the ocean,

  • and the answer is: unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.

  • The first challenge is the sheer size of these garbage patches. Theyre huuuuuge!

  • Theyre constantly moving with ocean currents. And there’s debris from the ocean’s surface

  • all the way down to the sea floor. Not to mention all the marine life we would disrupt

  • if we tried to just scoop up debris.

  • So what can we do? Well, the ultimate solution is prevention and we need to keep that as

  • our highest priority. We can reduce, reuse, and recycle to keep trash out of the ocean in the first place.

  • And we can participate in things like shoreline cleanups.

  • It's a lot easier to deal with debris before it gets to the ocean.

  • Because until we stop marine debris at the source, well just be cleaning it up forever.

What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

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