The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid island of rubbish, but a vast region of ocean where currents concentrate floating plastic into a soup of debris. It sits in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the huge rotating current system between California and Hawaii, where floating objects get trapped rather than drifting away.
A major scientific survey published in 2018 estimated that the patch holds about 1.8 trillion plastic pieces, with a total weight of around 79,000 tonnes — most of it larger, hard plastics such as nets, ropes, crates and buoys that can survive for years at sea.
