When the long-distance swimmer Benoît Lecomte swam across the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2019 to highlight plastic pollution on the high seas, he found the surface ocean ecosystem teeming with life among the human waste.
In particular, samples collected by his support team suggested a high concentration of floating life sometimes occurred in the same region as the floating plastic, likely having been brought there by the same physical forces.
Contrary to public belief, this region of the North Pacific is not just full of rubbish.
