The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

    I used to be horrified of how much plastic is in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but then one day in 5th grade science class I learned that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is way less scary than it seems, at least if you look at it from a distance. When the world found out that this Great Pacific Garbage Patch existed, it went nuts. It took a lot of over exaggerated charity and environmentalist propaganda to persuade people that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a huge mountain of floating plastic. This is far from the truth, unfortunately. 

One of the biggest problems with plastic is that in nature it doesn't decompose but always stays plastic. In the many garbage patches of our ocean the plastic is trapped in spinning currents called gyres. These patches of garbage can contain anything from microscopic plastic to plastic looking like a bunch of torn up plastic bags, to containing milk jugs. 

Remember how I said that it's unfortunate that garbage patches don't have huge mountains of floating plastic? I said this since the plastic in the garbage patches can be at any depth and they are usually spaced apart, making cleanup efforts an almost impossible task. 

Whether we like it or not, some estimates say that by 2050 the plastic mass in our ocean will weigh as much as the mass of the fish in the ocean. It's in our power how much single use plastic we waste every day, and if these estimates will be true.