The trash vortex
The very thing that makes plastic items useful to consumers, their durability and stability, also makes them a problem in marine environments. Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year of which about 10 percent ends up in the sea. About 20 percent of this is from ships and platforms, the rest from land.
The trash vortex is an area the size of Texas in the North Pacific in which an estimated 6 kilos of plastic for every kilo of natural plankton, along with other slow degrading garbage swirls slowly around like a clock, choked with dead fish, marine mammals, and birds who get snared.
