PACIFIC OCEAN — A new study suggests the Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be 16 times larger than previous estimates. <br />The results of a three-year study beginning in 2015, commissioned by the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, were published in the journal Scientific Reports on Thursday. <br /><br />With 30 vessels and a C-130 Hercules aircraft, researchers catalogued a sample of over a million pieces of plastic, mostly comprised of microplastics less than 0.5 centimeters in diameter, according to CBC News. <br /><br />The study estimates the patch could contain more than 1.8 trillion pieces of microplastics. <br /><br />Scientists say there are more than 79,000 tonnes of plastic in a 1.6 million square kilometer area of the North Pacific Ocean. <br />Researchers found plastic bottles, containers, packaging straps, lids, ropes and fishing nets among the other refuse that had been collecting for decades. <br /><br />As the plastics breakdown into smaller pieces, they threaten marine life that can eat them and die from them.
