Five major gyres are found in the world’s oceans, and there are floating bits of plastic in all of them. These “garbage patches” are not floating islands and aren’t even necessarily visible when gazing at the water. Much of the debris is very small and lies just below the surface. The highest density captured in one of the 6,100 sampling tows was approximately 200,000 pieces per square kilometer. It is hard to estimate the size of any garbage patch since the material is so spread out and may reach down to depths of 20 meters.
© Courtesy Giora Proskurowski, Sea Education Association